The sites may change and the events may be different, but one thing remains the same — the Herbst sisters win.

Competing in the Nike National Championships under-20 division in Eugene, Ore., Makenna and Morgan Herbst of Carlsbad High School again proved unbeatable.

Morgan Herbst jumped up to the international distance of 400-meter hurdles and after taking the United States lead with a time of 55.89 seconds in the prelims and then improved to 55.78 while easily capturing the event over Jasmine Robinson of Georgia, who ran 57.49.

Twin sister Makenna even had an easier time, running away with the 800-meter U-20 title with a time of 2:02.48 — second only to her state-championship and section-record time of 2:02.28. She won her race by just under 5 seconds.

Makenna and Morgan Herbst graduated from Carlsbad earlier this month. Both are headed to the University of Arkansas. The twins will have an opportunity to qualify for the United States national team in 2026; the World U-20 Championships are held in even-numbered years.

The sister-brother team of Anisa Bowen-Fontenot and Jasir Fontenot also fared well over the weekend.

Bowen-Fontenot came within .004 seconds of winning the 100-meter hurdles as she and Joslyn Hamilton, who just finished her freshman season at the University of South Carolina, had to go to 1,000ths of a second after both ran 13.36 seconds into a 0.7 meters-per-second wind.

The San Diego High School graduate who is headed to a different USC — the University of Southern California — was the leading qualifier out of the prelims at 13.40.

Her brother Jasir, who is expected to move from San Diego High to Mater Dei Catholic in the fall — his father, Bazz, has been named the school’s boys basketball coach — placed fourth in a blanket finish in the 110-meter hurdles.

He clocked a time of 13.37 seconds in the prelims and came back to run a 13.39 in the finals.

Texas’ Ja’Shaun Lloyd won in 13.31, Virginia’s Joshua-Kai Smith was second in 13.32 and New Jersey’s Jamir Brown was third in 13.35. At 15, Fontenot was youngest in the field by an average of three years.

Elsewhere, Eastlake senior-to-be Jaelyn Williams placed second in the U-20 1,500 at 4:22.32 before coming back to finish fourth in the 3,000 at 9:36.11; 2024 La Jolla High graduate and current Michigan quarter-miler Payton Smith placed fourth in the 400 at 53.17 and Oceanside junior Jayden Gibbs had a big improvement in the shot with a PR of 54 feet, 3¾ inches to place fifth.

More than 3,000 miles way in Philadelphia, La Jolla senior-to-be Chiara Dailey was seventh in the mile run at Franklin Field, clocking a 4:41.53 in the New Balance Nationals. Two weeks earlier, in the HOKA Festival of Miles in St. Louis, she ran 4:39.14 for the mile while being clocked at a 4:37.08 for 1,600 meters.

Since the 4:37.08 was run after the state meet, it can’t count for record purposes. Still, Dailey’s time is the fastest-ever 1,600 among section girls athletes. Her official section record is 4:40.28 run at Arcadia.

Originally Published: June 22, 2025 at 2:07 PM PDT

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Quincy Wilson won yet another national title at the New Balance Nationals. The 17-year-old track and field phenom silenced all of his haters with his sixth-straight crown, indoors or outdoors, in the 400-meter event.

He won the race by (almost) one full second after being fueled by unruly hecklers while in the blocks.

Wilson, who competed in track and field for the United States at the Olympics last summer, is going to be the United States’ next big star— if he isn’t already there. The rising senior owns just about every U18 record in the 400 and has not lost at New Balance Nationals during his high school career.

His latest win might be his most impressive. The second place finisher ran 46.33 and still lost. Wilson went 45.37 even though he slowed at the line! He would’ve won by more than a second if he kept pace.

Hayes, 61, of Hideout, died Sept. 25, 2024, after a late-night road rage altercation near the Ross Creek day use area ended in a gunshot.

Nine months later, dozens of people filled the beach just a mile from where Hayes died to remember a man they described as loving, kind and the life of any party.

His fiancée, Sue Ann Kern, said Hayes easily made friends.

“He was always gregarious, he was funny, he was always joking with people,” she said. “He gave the best hugs.”

His younger brother, Andy Hayes, said he was confident and always laughing.

Another brother, Matt Hayes, said he had a “huge heart.”

“He’d do anything for you,” he said.

And Michael Hayes said simply, “I love my brother.”

Hayes’ fiancée and brothers were among the many relatives and friends who traveled from near and far for the celebration of life June 21, where they shared photos and stories beside the water.

Kern said the shoreline was the perfect place to honor Hayes, a lifelong swimmer and avid water polo player.

“This is exactly what he would have wanted: by the water, in the sunshine, all of his friends,” she said.

She wore his favorite T-shirt, emblazoned with the name of his water polo team. And, like many of those in the crowd, she sported a pale blue hat embroidered with the words “I’ll be there for you.” Kern said a friend suggested everyone wear the hat in solidarity.

“It’s just a great way to show how all these friends have been so supportive and loving – it’s amazing,” she said.

Hayes’ siblings, Michael, Matt and Andy, got choked up as they remembered their brother. All three described a childhood in southern California spent constantly in the water. Later, when several of the siblings got swimming scholarships to the University of Utah, they fell in love with the mountains.

Michael Hayes, the oldest, said he was grateful for the way his relationship with his brother evolved as they grew into adults. He said they became close over long conversations about family, politics and parenting.

“That’s really what I remember about Pat – that relationship that we had, that was built over time and just being a really good friend and companion when we were together,” he said.

For Hayes’ loved ones, learning about his death was traumatic, and the months since have not brought closure. At Saturday’s celebration of life, his brothers said it’s been difficult to accept how the shooting has been handled by law enforcement.

Matt Hayes said the Wasatch County Attorney’s Office decision not to charge the shooter with his brother’s death still makes him angry.

“It’s actually moved from sorrow to frustration and anger that is now happening,” he said. “I’m sad that he’s gone, but now it’s, boy, something’s got to happen.”

Wasatch County sheriff’s deputies identified and arrested Greg Kyle DeBoer three months after the shooting. He told investigators he shot Hayes, drove away and buried the gun in the backyard of his Browns Canyon home. He was charged with a single count of obstruction of justice.

Detectives testified about the weapon at a preliminary hearing earlier this month. DeBoer hasn’t entered a plea, and a judge has yet to determine whether the case will head to trial.

In February, Hayes’ son, Christian Hayes, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against DeBoer. The suit said DeBoer should be held responsible for Patrick Hayes’ death.

Both cases continue to make their way through court.

The placid watercolours featured this month at the Gumboot Café in Roberts Creek may be a stylistic departure for professional cartoon character developer Matt Boismier, but there is one subtle feature in common: animation.

Cars trundle under the neon-lighted entrance of Granville Island. A pedestrian raises an umbrella in rain-slicked School Road. Bathers tiptoe into the azure waters of Hopkins Landing, while a diesel-powered leviathan steams sedately past Howe Sound promontories. Even a sleepy island scene (Savary Transport), which shows a bicycle at rest in an evergreen’s shade, hints that the two-wheeled conveyance dreams of takeoff.

Boismier — who works for the TV and movie animation industry under his sobriquet Tooninator, by engineering the characters for new productions — opened his home-based gallery to Art Crawl visitors for the first time last fall. (He and his wife moved from Kitsilano to Gibsons during the COVID diaspora.) He put his favourite works on display, depicting airliners under tow at YVR and tankers sighted from the Kits beach volleyball pitch. To his surprise, an unlikely subject attracted buyers, again and again: his brutalist portrayals of coastal ferries.

“No one’s looking at that going: ‘that’s beautiful,’” Boismier chuckled. “It’s industrial, it’s grey. But we all know it. We all know it very well, and there’s a lot of life around it. I just draw whatever and hope it sticks.”

In his Horseshoe Bay Bound, the car deck’s double doors open to reveal the approaching terminal. Pools of reflected light soften the vessel’s rust-accented interior. A ferry worker wearing incandescent safety gear meanders unhurriedly to his station.

“These [paintings] are just things that I was interested in and that I thought were challenging to capture or to evoke a certain emotion, so that’s why I painted them,” Boismier said. “They weren’t meant to be masterpieces because when I do that, the life kind of goes by the wayside, and it’s sad.”

Last Friday he competed in the Kube gallery’s high-spirited art battle, scoring a victory in one of the timed competition’s frenetic rounds by wielding spray cans to fashion a fast-paced creation.

Boismier grew up in Ontario drawing freelance portraits and caricatures — even while working at Canada’s Wonderland, a Toronto-area theme park. He competed as a member of the International Society of Caricature Artists. “Animation is such a good background for bringing life and storytelling to anything,” he observed.

While American comics are usually fixated on superheroes, he notes that in other graphic novel traditions — in France and Japan, for example — artists employ different ways of creating compelling scenarios. With such sophisticated influences shaping the industry, he laments the fact that high-achieving animated films are still relegated by the Academy Awards to a sandboxed category instead of being considered for Best Picture.

After a day of guiding designers and tending to the demands of producers, Boismier typically puts his newborn to sleep around 8:30 p.m. then paints until 2 a.m. He’s fascinated with the play of light in everyday locations — including the local service station that he depicts in Wilson Creek Ice Bin. During a recent visit to New York, he ran to the end of the block, saw an angle he liked, and pulled his omnipresent sketchbook from his pocket. “I’m obsessed,” he admitted. “I love it, and I just want to draw or paint all the time.”

Boismier credits the supportive arts community on the Sunshine Coast. During his decade in Vancouver, he was unsure how to build a local network. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” he said. Since coming to the Coast in 2021, he’s become a fixture of the Drink + Doodle gatherings at the Tapworks Brewing Company, and will show his work again during this fall’s Art Crawl. “I think the Sunshine Coast is just a little more chill,” he said.

Life in Watercolour by Matt Boismier remains on display at the Gumboot Café in Roberts Creek until the end of June.