Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-03-02
BOARD OF TRADE NOTES

Melvin W. Sheppard, director of
recreation activities in the Millrose
Athletic Association, New York City,
will be n of the principal speakers
at the March 8th meeting of the Wild
wood Board of Trade. His subject
will be Municipal Playground and
Community Recreation" Mel" Shep-
pard, who was known the world over
a dozen years ago as Peerless Mel
winner of numerous national middle
distance running championships and
double winner for Uncle Sam in the
Olympic championships in London in
1908, has commenced work as director
of the new department of athletic and
physical education at the Millrose
Athletic Association. He had charge
of the athletic association for three
years. Army service called him away
in 1917, when he became Division Ath-
letic Director under the War Depart
ment Commission on Training Camp
Activities with the Thirty-eighth
Division stationed at Camp Selby.
Mississippi. He served there for a
year and was then transferred to
Camp Green, NorthCarolina, where he
worked until called to the community
service at Chester, Pa. During the
past four years Sheppard has
been organizing community centers
throughout the country. Members of
the Millrose Athletic Association are
enthusiastic over the guidance they
are to get from a man who won his
laurels in three international Olym-
piads and in numerous athletic con-
tests throughout the world. He knows
the game from A to z, and it is ex-
pected that he will turn out one of the
strongest teams that ever represented
the Broadway organization. The new
athletic trainer of the Millrose Ath-
letic Association came into promi-
hence at the Brown Preparatory
School, Philadelphia. He ran his first
race at the games of the Berkeley
School Athletic Association in the old
Twenty-sixth Street Regiment Armory,
Sixty-sixth street and Broadway. His
showing in the middle distance events
attracted the attention of the trainers
and it was said that he would prove
to be the sensation of the athletic
world. At the ST. Louis Fair, in 1904,
Sheppard, who competed as a school
boy, won two scholastic champion
ships, running the $50 yards and one
mile race in record-breaking time.
Worlds records in the interscholastic
mile and the two-mile event at New
York and Philadelphia were subse-
quently broken by Sheppard. After
his successful schoolboy career Shop
pard, who lived in Philadelphia,
moved to New York and joined the
Irish-American Athletic Club in
1906. He won American champion
ships, Canadian championships, world
championships and at least 1000
prizes. Sheppard vas selected as
a member of the American Olympic
team in 1908 and won the $50 meter
and the 1900 meter runs and was also
a member of the winning relay team.
He scored more points than any other
athlete competing at the meet. On
his return home President Roosevelt
recognized the honors which Shep-
pard had for America by appoint
ing him to the Customs Service at the
port of Philadelphia. During 1910
Sheppard broke ten worlds records
in seven weeks at Celtic Park, and one
year later was made captain of the
Irish-American Athletic Club, which
was a high honor because the or
ganization was the best in the country
at the time. With Lawson Robertson
as his coach, Sheppard won practi-
cally everything in sight. In his
third Olympic meet in 1912 Sheppard
was defeated in the $50 meter run by
Ted Meredith, who sported the 'colors
of the University of Pennsylvania.
Sheppard, however, a on the Ameri-
can relay team which won the worlds
championship.