by By Dan Ninham (Oneida)
Taran Alexander Howard is Ojibwe and his Anishinaabe name is Giiwedin (north wind). “I live in a little community called Ball Club on the Leech Lake Reservation with my Grandparents. My Grandparents names are Tom and Sharon Howard, they both are Ojibwe, and are the ones who raised me into the young man I am today.”
“He has lived with his grandparents his whole life and he has learned his values from us,” said Grandma Sharon. “He was raised to always be respectful and help his elders. Taran is well liked by all community members and he also volunteers at the Deer River Hospital in which he has enjoyed.”
“The strengths I bring to the cross country team in the fall and the track and field team in the spring are leading by example, positive reinforcement, and my willingness to help others. By far, I’d say the most apparent strength of mine is positive reinforcement. I strive to make everyone on the team feel welcome and that they feel encouraged to tackle their races head first,” added Taran.
“My tribal core values define who I am as a student athlete through influencing my actions to be threaded with sportsmanship (Manaadendamowin and Dabaadendiziwin), pushing through races (Aakwade’ewin), and running with passion (Zaagi’idiwin),” said Taran.
Taran has a GPA of 4.0 that he has maintained throughout his high school years and he is currently at the top of his class. He has been on the Student Council, the National Honor Society and went to Nationals in FFA for writing a research paper on Burkina Faso where he was able to meet and greet world leaders from around the world. He also attended UM for a FFA leadership conference. He also works part time 29 hours a week on top of his academics and extracurricular activities.
“This spring I’ll graduate with my high school diploma from Deer River High School as well as an Associate of Arts degree from Itasca Community College,” said Taran. “After this I plan on attending the University of Minnesota Morris to obtain my Bachelors of Biology with a pre-med focus and apply to med school afterwards. Athletics help keep me on track in school, as well as life, because the running community is a positive one and focuses on wellness and self-improvement. I have noticed over the course of my high school career that the vast majority of Cross Country runners have a knack for academic leadership. I don’t think I would be where I’m currently at if it wasn’t for running and the mental/physical benefits it provides.”
“Track and Field Coach Matt Carlstrom and Cross Country Coach Jon White have influenced me positively as a student athlete because of the balance between encouragement and intense workouts they administered to us runners,” said Taran. “I owe the bulk of the positive influence to my Grandpa Tom and Grandma Sharon, who not only stressed the importance of academic success, but the success in running with a purpose and passion. These past few years I dedicated my running to my Grandparents who made it a goal to watch every meet and who’s faces lit up every time I finished a race or brought news of good grades.”
Taran is on a journey cultivating health and wellness. It had to start somewhere and sometime and he made the right decision at the right time. Taran said: “Before I got into running, I was extremely overweight in middle school. This began my weight loss journey. I’m not going to lie. I went about losing weight in an incredibly unhealthy manner. Running and support from my Grandparents helped remedy this because I put two and two together that in order to run strong, you need to fuel your body right. Running—as well as any other activities I participated in and it sucked if I didn’t eat. Nowadays, I eat for my health and wellbeing, choosing the most wholesome foods I have access to and focusing on being the best me I can be.”
The focus is to compete at the state level in the fall and spring as well as to set and strive for personal records. “My high school running accomplishments would be qualifying and participating in three Minnesota State High School meets,” said Taran. “Two for cross country and one for track and field in the 800m. My personal records are 16:50.5 for the 5k and 2:03 for the 800m.”
Track and Field Head Coach Matt Carlstrom said: “Taran’s been a pleasure to coach in Track these past 6 years! He’s a self-motivator who sets a great example for his peers with his work ethic and positive nature. He’s so supportive and positive of his teammates that he’s made a great captain the last two years. Athletically, his success comes from his drive and willingness to push through the pain involved in being a distance runner in both CC and Track to improve and run faster.”
Cross Country Head Coach Jon White addressed the post-season preparation: “When prepping for post-season training in anything, we tend to step up the aggression of practice, or tempo; that’s what we’re doing now. We’ll continue to use weights on off days, and keep our distance at peak (5-8 miles). When we do harder practices, we keep the distance shorter: 5k pace at 2.5-4 miles. Then, we’ll go into body weight circuits just so we can keep that heart rate at peak. Taran likes to keep this tempo, because during in season I try to work with all the runners. By that it keeps the rest of the runners interested instead of me focusing on one runner or two. A lot of his hard work comes in the off-season, and that’s what I try to preach to all my runners. It’s the base distance that makes runners great, and for that reason alone is why Taran has made it to multiple state trips!”
Running photos provided by Sharon Howard and profile picture provided by Jasmin Chouinard.
