2026 Chesterton Athletics Hall of Fame: Katey Parsons, Class of 1994, still holds the 800-meter school record set on the day she won the race at the state meet to cap a big senior that included big thrills in cross country and basketball

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

A record-breaker as early as her freshman year, Chesterton Class of 1994 graduate Katey Parsons capped off a spectacular three-sport career that kept getting better and better with a senior year that still echoes loudly today.
Parsons will be honored at halftime of the Trojans’ season-opening football game vs. Hobart Aug. 21 and in a dinner Saturday, Aug. 22 (cocktail hour at 4:30 p.m.) as part of the 2026 Athletic Hall of Fame class.
Katey’s older sister Karlyn, also a standout athlete at Chesterton, their father, Chuck, and Katey’s son, Damerae will be among those joining her at the induction dinner.
A licensed professional counselor, Katey works in the counseling center at the Colorado School of Mines, where she is the clinical outreach coordinator.
During a telephone interview, she was excited to hear that the Ray family, including former basketball teammate Amanda, was being inducted, and Parsons also is looking forward to sharing the honor with a former distance coach, Steve Kearney.
She said it has been probably “10 or 15 years” since she has been back to her hometown. As for what she most looks forward to for the weekend, she said: “Showing my son Lake Michigan.”
Few Chesterton athletes can have as many senior memories from their senior seasons as Parsons.
Parsons was a key member of a cross country team that placed third in the state, started for Chesterton’s most recent girls basketball regional championship team, which was bounced from the semi-state by the great Stephanie White, and made her final day representing her school her best.
Parsons ran such a fast 800-meter race to win the 1994 state track and field meet that it was the best time (2:13.04) over a 10-year stretch from 1989 through 1998. It also was a school record.
Parsons set other records during her time at Chesterton, including the 1600 meters, as a freshman the first time, and the 4K cross country mark when she finished second at the DAC meet as a senior.
But those records didn’t last.
Forty-two years later, Parsons still holds the Chesterton 800-meter record, especially impressive considering how many strong runners the Trojans have had in the event, as evidenced by their long string of success in the 4x800 relay, which was not a state event in Parson’s day.
Despite improvements in training methods, running shoes and so many other factors, the 2:13.04 that Parsons ran to win the 800 meters at the state track and field meet remains the maroon and gold standard for two laps around the track.
Even if that record is broken eventually, at least one title never can be taken from her: state champion.
“In a lot of other states they have different classes. You could be the 5A champion or the 4A champion,” Parsons said. “I always felt proud of the fact that we had one. It was always fun to be able to say that.”
The 800 meters can be a tough one to pace properly because, as Parsons put it, “It’s strategic and it’s over fast.”
Those words fit the 800 better than any other race, which in turn amplifies wrong decisions.
It’s not an easy race. For one thing, it requires not only defeating the competition, but containing a potential enemy from within: adrenaline.
It can lead to runners going too fast in the first lap.
“Been there, done that,” Parsons said.
By that she meant at the state meet in her junior year.
“I ran my fastest quarter mile ever and then I finished 11th,” she said.
Parsons went to school on that the following year and became the second state champion in program history and the first runner. Lisa Naumann (discus, 1981) was the first. Parsons’ induction comes two-and-a-half months after Kenedi Bradley became the third state champion in program history.
This time, still was up front after the first lap but had enough energy stored to bury the competition with a strong kick to an easy victory.
More than just the half dozen or so Chesterton teammates competing at the meet were cheering for Parsons as she ran the race of her life and even chanting her name as she strolled through the parking lot later.
“Gary Lew Wallace High School had its whole team there, so they had a whole bus full and they were chanting my name as we were going back to our bus,” Parsons remembered. “A girl from Benton Central had the fastest time coming in and if she had won the 800 meters, then Benton Central would have won the meet. Lew Wallace was counting on other teams to beat Benton Central. They were very supportive of me beating that particular person.”
And then there the tears shed by a man who was not just a big Katey fan that day, but for every day of her life.
“I remember my friends in the stands said they couldn’t be around my dad after I won because he was crying and they were all uncomfortable,” Katey shared.
It was the perfect ending to a thrill-packed career that was especially successful in her senior season.
The cross country team, coached by the late Larry James, had so much depth that Parsons was the fourth of the Trojans to cross the finish line at the state meet and she placed 37th. She believes she would have fared far worse had today’s distance, 5,000 meters, been in effect then but that of course is irrelevant.
Then it was onto basketball season, where she started for a team that also featured talented teammates listed here in alphabetical order: Jill Campbell, Christy Cleveland, Becky Nover, Carol Potts and Amanda Ray.
Under the direction of head coach Jack Campbell and assistant Fred Mitchell, the girls had been working in the shadow of rival Valparaiso, which continued its success against the Trojans with a 39-30 win in the regular season.
In order to get another shot at the Vikings in the sectional title game, Chesterton had to come back from a 21-point deficit against Portage in a 62-57 overtime win in the semifinal.
Chesterton won the Valpo rematch 49-47.
Parsons’ thoughts on the accomplishment were published in the yearbook, the 1994 Singing Sands: “Beating Valpo was the best feeling ever. I loved beating them. Ever since I have been a freshman, all I heard was ‘Beat Valpo!’ but we never did it until now.”
It took one of the biggest names in the history of Indiana girls high school basketball to end the Trojans’ season and even at that it came in a close game. Junior Stephanie White, current coach of the Indiana Fever of Caitlyn Clark and Sophie Cunningham fame, led Seeger to a 55-51 win over the Trojans in the semi-state round.
Months later, the school record Parsons set 7-½ years before Clark’s birth is standing strong.