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Shawn Totman was helping Taylor Harmon spread mulch on the Cony High School cross country trail in 2006 when Harmon, the school’s track and field coach, took a moment to look ahead.

“Taylor said, ‘You know, some day we’re going to have a state meet here,'” Totman said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t know, it feels like they’re kind of set in their ways between Belfast and Twin Brook (in Cumberland). I don’t know if they’ll stray too far.’ He goes, ‘They will.’ … You could tell it was a dream of his.”

That dream is finally realized. Cony High School is hosting the cross country state championships Saturday, marking the first time the meet has been held in Maine’s capital city since UMaine Augusta hosted in 2001.

It’s the first time Cony has hosted, and the race will be dedicated to Harmon, the beloved track and field coach and cross country assistant coach at the school who died in 2015. It’s the fitting end to a nearly two-year effort to repair Cony’s course, which was damaged by heavy rainfall and restored thanks to thousands of dollars of construction – Cony athletic director T.J. Maines estimated $20,000 – and hours upon hours of volunteer maintenance.

“It was something that made us very proud, that they would want to come here,” said Totman, Cony’s cross country coach since 2005. “(It’s) just an incredible way to end a season, right here on our home course. That positivity and that energy hasn’t gone away since Day 1.”

Maine Principals’ Association assistant executive director Mike Bisson said the timing of Cony’s course repairs, along with a longing to return to Augusta’s central location for the championships, created a “perfect storm.”

“There were some folks that remembered the good old days when we used to run the states at UMA,” he said. “I think people remember that fondly. … I think there are some people that wanted to get back to that.”

Holding them at Cony, however, seemed an impossibility in the fall of 2023 when a wet spring and summer saturated a lower part of the trail and created mud that wouldn’t dry out. The conditions were so bad that Cony didn’t host a home meet that fall.

“It really just ruined the course,” Maines said. “And there was nothing we could do about it.”

Not without extensive work, but soon after the season was over, multiple parties came together to make sure the problem was fixed. Totman and Maines were involved, and so was Augusta Department of Community Services director Earl Kingsbury and Cony All Sports Boosters head Jason Douin.

“We met with everybody,” Totman said. “This meeting, everything we brought up was (answered with) ‘We’ll find a way to get it done.’ No was never an option.”

The first step was getting the course functional again, which meant fixing the water and mud issue. The solution was the creation of eight culverts, which put water under the trail as opposed to over it, that were put in by H.E. Callahan Construction and Douin’s own JD GroundScapes company.

That work was done by the early summer of 2024, and the focus shifted from hosting races to the bigger goal of the state meets. After Maines and Kingsbury showed the course to Bisson last spring, work began to improve the grounds aesthetically.

Jon Stonier, the director of buildings and grounds for Augusta Schools, as well as volunteers from Augusta Nature Club and the Cony boosters spent days on the upgrades, which included cutting trees and trimming bushes to widen the trail, and laying rock and topsoil to improve the conditions.

“We’ve just kept up with it for the last two years,” Kingsbury said. “Now, (even) with a heavy rain, we have a fighting chance. The course is just in mint condition. … It was just a team involvement.”

The volunteers have kept at the work throughout the fall to make sure the trail is championship caliber.

“This course looks pristine. … It’s spectacular,” Totman said. “It just looks better. The upkeep on it has been a focus all fall. … Nobody’s let anything slide.”

The state’s best runners will see it Saturday, and also see a demanding course that will challenge them with hills and elevation changes. Just the way Harmon envisioned nearly 20 years ago.

“This course was a labor of love for Taylor,” Totman said. “He would be so happy that we’re having this race.”