Current Greene County High School senior Carter Morton has only had one track & field meet this season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He made the most of it, winning the high jump last month inside the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls at the A.D. Dickinson Relays just before school and all school-related activities were called off. He also did well that day in the long jump and 60 meter hurdles. Morton placed at the Drake Relays and the State Meet in 2019 in the high jump, and was also a place winner at State last year in the high hurdles, while finishing ninth in the low hurdles race.

Morton is a University of Northern Iowa track & field recruit who may have only begun to scratch the surface of his versatility. It remains to be seen if he and other Spring sports athletes in the state will get to compete at all this season, but one day just over a year ago will stand in the memories of Ram track & field fans for a long time.

It was April 8, 2019, the Monday after Greene County held its junior-senior prom. The Rams competed at the Carroll Coed Relays on a beautiful and unseasonably warm day. Morton had already automatically qualified for the Drake Relays high jump by going 6′ 7″ in an earlier meet, but on this day, he cleared the bar at 6’8″, a new Greene County High School record. That clearance also tied him with 2004 Jefferson-Scranton HS grad Keith Pedersen, now an attorney in Jefferson, for the highest anyone from a Jefferson-based track & field program has ever high jumped.

Who knows if Morton and his Greene County teammates will get another chance to compete this season, but April 8, 2019, is a date Ram track & field fans won’t soon forget.