National High School Records Through the Years

Girls Outdoor Record – Pole vault

Shannon Agee (Helena High School, Helena, Montana)

Performance – 13 feet, 2 inches

Date – May 14, 1998

Place – Helena, Montana

Meet – Dual meet versus Capital HS, Helena

Previous Record – 13-1 ¾ by Melissa Price (Kingsburg, California) June 24, 1995, in Walnut, California

In a crosstown dual meet 27 years ago this week between rival schools, Capital High and Helena High, when the pole vault was still a curiosity in America for girls, competitors for both schools were still alive when the bar went to 13 feet. (The NCAA did not contest the women’s vault as a championship event until that spring. The winning height at that year’s NCAA meet? 12-5 ½.) Shannon Agee for Helena and Suzanne Krings for Capital had both cleared 12-6. Crucial dual meet points were at stake on a blustery Thursday afternoon in Vigilante Stadium 4,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains. Agee made it over to win the dual meet, then went 2 inches higher to get the national record by a quarter inch. It was the first time two high school girls had cleared 12-6 in the same competition. Two weeks later Agee won her fourth Class AA Montana state PV title, while Krings tied for second in the vault and won the high jump. Only four high school girls cleared 13 feet before the turn of the century – previous recordholder Melissa Price, Californian Tracy O’Hara, Oregonian Sara Sasaki and  Agee. Four years later, as Shannon Agee-Jones, she made All-American in the vault for Montana State University. 

National High School Records Through the Years appears once a week, compiled and written by a track historian, Jack Pfeifer (Lake Oswego, Oregon). Inquiries may be directed to him by email ([email protected]).