Standing in front of a few dozen elementary and middle school runners piled into an auxiliary building at Caribou High School last Saturday, John Plourde told stories about perseverance and being humble. In each tale, the central figure was his father.
Nearly 90 years ago, Emery Plourde was one of Maine’s brightest distance running stars. He helped Caribou to a team cross country title in 1938, set more than half a dozen state and county records, and in 1939, he won the state cross country championship wearing his coach’s shoes.
The latter feat inspired a children’s book recently published about Plourde, one of several ways the Maine Sports Hall of Famer is being honored at his alma mater.
The story goes — as John Plourde tells it — that a week before the state championship meet, Emery’s running shoes disappeared from his locker. Unsure of what to do, he turned to his coach, Harry Richardson, who himself is one of Maine’s most legendary running figures.
“He says ‘Emery, I’ve got a pair of shoes here, I don’t know if they’ll fit, but you’re more than welcome to wear them if you’d like,’” John Plourde recalled his father telling him. “Dad put them on, as you would have it, they fit. The next week he goes to states and he wins.”
Wearing those same shoes during the outdoor track season the following spring, Emery won three state titles, including clocking a 4:30 mile that stood as the Aroostook County record for 40 years.
Going through his belongings years later, Plourde found one of the shoes and recounted the story to John for the first time. The family donated it to Caribou High School, where it sat in a trophy case for decades.
Rene Gorneault discovered the shoe on a late winter day in 2024. A local teacher and cross country coach, Gorneault went for a run with her sons inside the high school to escape the cold. Looking in the trophy case, they saw the shoe, and a note that explained its origins.
The story motivated Gorneault to write the children’s book “Emery Plourde’s Shoe,” which she brought to life with the help of John Plourde over the next year. She self-published the book in October 2025.
“I’m inspired by running,” Gorneault said. “I think it’s a lifelong sport. And to hear stories like Emery Plourde’s … it’s just inspiring. I think if we could share that with our athletes, our young runners, they will carry that with them as well.”
Joined by other members of the Plourde family, including his brother Bob and sister Jane, John Plourde read Gorneault’s book to Little Musterds, a summer running group for fifth through eighth graders.
Plourde — who himself had a decorated career as an athlete, coach and referee — now lives in North Carolina. He made the trip back to The County to be inducted into Caribou’s Athletic Hall of Fame. Emery Plourde was posthumously inducted as part of the hall’s inaugural class in 2022.
“It brings a lot of emotions to me,” John Plourde said. “Being inducted myself into the same hall of fame that he has been in is a tremendous honor.”
Now standing next to the track at Caribou High School is a large sign, donated by the Plourde family, that lists the Vikings’ cross country and track and field state champions on one side and school records on the other. Written across the top, alongside a picture, reads “In loving memory of Emery ‘Flash’ Plourde.”
None of Plourde’s records still stand, and that’s O.K., John Plourde told the Little Musterds.
“Some of your names are going to be on that board some day,” Plourde said. “As my dad told me, records are meant to be broken.”
