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IMBLER Ore. (KPTV) - It was a history-making season for the Imbler High School track team.

The Panther boys won the program’s first state track and field title in 35 years, while the girls team took second place. Even more interesting is the Imbler kids succeeded without having a true home track to call their own.

The Imbler Panthers have visions of ‘taking their paws from rock to rubber.’

“The track has been there I believe since the early 80′s, it was put in by a farmer, so it was dusted up, put in some gravel and there you go!” said Ian Gordon, the chairman of Imbertrack.org.

The Imbler Track and Field community project aims to provide an appropriate facility for practices, meets, and massively improved safety for the kids.

“The gravel track definitely leads to a lot of injuries, really inconvenient,” said Adam Gordon, the Imbler H.S. 4x100M relay 1A State Champion. “Especially when you’re doing sprints around the track and every single step you take, you slide back on the gravel and it like, ahhh!”

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Adam Gordon is an incoming senior at Imbler, home of the Panthers, and the 2024 1A OSAA State Track and Field Champions, who prowled to the top of the podium for the first time in 35 years at Hayward Field in Track Town USA.

“Pretty significant,” said Adam Gordon. “35 years, it’s like half a lifetime. I mean, especially for a team with no track, it’s pretty cool.

”The Imbler High School class of 2025 is some 30 kids in a farm town of some 300 people North of La Grande in the Grand Ronde Valley.

“When you’re in a class of smaller people, your impact, it’s a lot bigger and you actually kind of feel like you can feel your place in the community rather than, you know, I’m one of 2,000 kids at the school,” said Adam Gordon.

From gravel to an eight lane rubberized surface, the Imbler Track Project will keep the kids at home rather than using other facilities out of town.

“I was the guy that went to the school board and complained the loudest and they say, ‘ok, well, if you think we can get a track built, go do it,” said Ian Gordon, Adam Gordon’s father.

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Ian Gordon is the chairman of the project which has raised nearly $830,000 in donations and grants to near its $1.3 million goal for completion.

“The community has always had a real strong focus on the school because in Imbler, that’s all we have,” said Ian Gordon. “We have some houses and the school and there’s one grocery store, a little market and that’s all there is to the town.”

The Imbler Track Project would be used by kids from kindergarten through 12th grade and be a major upgrade for everyone in the town.

“Our senior citizens have a great place to exercise on the track and that really is an important point for us to have a place where folks in the community can go,” said Ian Gordon. “There aren’t any sidewalks except on the busy state highway in Imbler.”

The Imbler students are ‘dynamite runners and stars in the classroom’ with a cumulative GPA of 3.75. Stadium lights are also a part of the project as the Panthers football team has been forced into afternoon games while their parents work, instead of soaking up those Friday night lights.

Visit imblertrack.org to learn more.