Sawyer and Cordellos to be inducted into the Dipsea Hall of Fame

The Dipsea Hall of Fame induction dinner and scholarship ceremony on Friday, June 9, in Sausalito will be one for the ages.

Megan McGowan Sawyer, who won back-to-back Dipsea races before she was a teenager, and the late Harry Cordellos of Novato, who competed in more than a dozen Dipseas though blind up to the age of 70, will be the newest Dipsea HOF inductees. They will be honored at the Dipsea HOF dinner ceremony, which has moved to Spinnaker’s restaurant in Sausalito.

The program begins with a no-host cocktail hour at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. and the awards ceremony. In addition to the HOF induction, the Dipsea Race Foundation will award – scholarships to local high school seniors.

For more information or to RSVP and purchase tickets before June 2, visit the DRF webpage on the Dipsea Race website or follow this link: http://www.dipseafoundation.org/

The 112^th Dipsea – the oldest trail race in the country – will be held on Sunday morning, June 11, starting at 8 a.m. in downtown Mill Valley and ending at Stinson Beach.

McGowan Sawyer, now a mother of two who now works as a medical laboratory scientist and microbiology supervisor at Stormont Vail Health in Topeka, KS, first competed in the Dipsea in 1989 and a year later – as an eight-year-old, 60-pound, second grader – finished runner-up in the race to Sal Vasquez, a Dipsea Hall of Famer who won a record seven Dipsea races.,

In 1991 and again in 1992, McGowan Sawyer won the race, becoming the first of only six females in the 117-year history of the Dipsea to win the 7.5-mile trail race from downtown Mill Valley to Stinson Beach multiple times. Shirley Matson, Melody-Anne Schultz, Jamie Rivers, Diana Fitzpatrick, and Chris Lundy are the others.

McGowan Sawyer, at nine years old in 1991, was the youngest competitor ever to win the Dipsea until 8-year-old Reilly Johnson finished first 19 years later. She still owns the Dipsea age group records for ages 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Cordellos, who was living in Novato until his death on Easter, competed in more than a dozen Dipseas from 1972 to 2008, but perhaps his most famous race was in 1979 when he and Mike Restani, Harry’s running partner and guide, were filmed competing in the race for a 1980 short documentary movie “Survival Run.”