Michelle Allan has long been a part of the Faith Bible family.  Over the past few years if you were to come to a basketball or soccer game more then likely you would have found Michelle there rooting on the Falcons.  If you were to go to a school dance, yep you guessed it....Michelle would be there. If you were to experience IMPACT, Faith's local mission trip you would be there with Michelle.  She actually was baptized at IMPACT last year...you see, Faith has long been her second family.  In fact, if your were to look at a Faith's yearbook you might mistake her as a student attending Faith.  In reality she was a Glencoe student who prayed for the opportunity to some day come to Faith.  Her junior year God answered Michelle's prayers and she was able to come to Faith.

Michelle kicked off the year running cross country and attended every soccer and volleyball game she could continuing to support her fellow Falcons.  During basketball she was one of the girls basketball managers and the coach raved about her "servants heart" to help others.  Then track rolled around and little did anyone know the success Michelle would have.

Michelle had experience in the pole vault, an event that Faith has never had anyone participate in before.  This proved to be a problem as track practices were just a week away and Faith's practice facility has no pole vault pit and Faith also didn't even own a pole as they had never had a pole vaulter before.  Just a week before practice the facility Faith uses for their practices informed them that they could no longer practice at their normal time and that they could only hold partial practices this year.  With less then a week until the first practice Faith found a new facility, this facility had a pole vault pit!  What seemed to be a problem just days before had become a blessing.  Still one major problem...Faith still didn't have a pole and poles are expensive.  This problem was brought before the Falcon booster club and they all agreed to give this Michelle an opportunity to participate in this event she so desperately wanted to do.  So now Michelle had a track with a pole vault pit and a pole, but now she didn't have a coach that specialized in pole vault.  This to was solved by coach Kate from Lake Oswego who agreed to help Michelle in her journey and they were able to work together towards the end of the season.

Districts arrive and Michelle has a good chance of advancing to state.  Vault for vault Michelle and a girl from Nestucca battle for the top position.  The event is over.  I don't know who won, I don't know if Michelle has made it to state.  At a distance I see her in her head coach, Amy Kirkpatrick's embrace as tears run down her face.  I fear that she has just missed making it to state.  I walk over to find out how she did.  Did you make it to state I ask.  She replies, "yes."  So I ask her what is wrong and I will never forget her reply as she says, "I am just disappointed because I wanted to do my best, I wanted to accomplish what I know I can."  Then she says, "It is ok though because I still have state."  What beautiful words, tears didn't come from not making it to state or losing to anyone, that wasn't a concern.  Her concern came from doing her best.  As an athlete this is what we all should strive for...of course we all want to win...but it comes down to did I do my best.  Not did I do good enough to win...but did I do my best, did I give my best effort and leave nothing behind?  Michelle vaulted 9' and tied for 1st place.

A week later the state championships are here and Michelle Allan has one final chance to do her best.  She has one last chance to give her best effort and find out what the results will be.  Her first vault goes straight into the pole and doesn't look good, but that doesn't phase her.  From here on out, Michelle wouldn't miss another vault until she was all alone in the competition and had set a new PR.  Michelle vaulted 9'7 and won the state championship by over a foot. On her 9'7 vault she knew she had it as soon as she was over the pole and was already celebrating has her body fell back down to the earth.  She immediately jumped up to wave and recognize all those who have helped her along the way, then she covered her face with her hands as in disbelief of what she just did. Michelle has long given credit to her Creator for giving her the ability she has and the opportunity to accomplish such great things.  She also set a PR in triple jump with a jump of 33'5 that was good for a 4th place finish.  

Now Faith has had one person pole vault in the history of their track program and they also have one state championship in the pole vault.  This marked Faith's 4th ever state championship in an event and Michelle is the 2nd person from Faith to ever win a state championship.