PORT ANGELES — The race director of the Port Angeles Marathon Association, Victoria Jones, has been named the 2021 Washington State Event Organizer of the year by the Washington Festivals & Events Association.
Jones received the recognition during the annual awards dinner in Bellevue on Wednesday.
She also received several Pacific Northwest Summit Awards for events on the Olympic Peninsula: North Olympic Peninsula Chapter Event of the Year for an event under $150,000; Run the Peninsula for best event recap, best healthy lifestyle event and best promotional item; and North Olympic Discovery marathon for best green program and best educational program.
Other recipients on the North Olympic Peninsula for the Pacific Northwest Summit Awards are:
• Olympic Medical Center Foundation — Tickets and invitations (Harvest of Hope), sponsorship proposal (Sonny Sixkiller Celebrity Golf Classic) and healthy lifestyle event (Red, Set, Go February 2021 Virtual Challenge).
• Port Angeles Hall of Fame — Best Photo and best fundraising event.
• Dungeness Crab and Seafood Festival — North Olympic Peninsula Chapter Event of the Year for an event over $150,000 and best brochure of the year.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jones has put on 27 events. Twenty-two were solely virtual while the other five were hybrid events.
During this time, the existing events had more than a 300 percent increase in participation and included people from all 50 states and five countries, according to Washington Festivals & Events Association (WFEA).
Some of these events included Run the Peninsula Series, the North Olympic Discovery Marathon and Sun Fun Color Run.
In addition, she added new virtual runs including OMC Cares Virtual Run & Wellness Walk, which was free to all employees at Olympic Medical Center, and Red, Set Go Virtual Run.
She also worked with Jared Loranger of FIZZ Events to create Run the West Coast, comprised of 16 different virtual runs, including Run Washington, Run Oregon and Run California.
WFEA is a corporation dedicated to promoting the common business interests of the festivals and events industry in Washington state.
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The Peninsula Daily News and Sequim Gazette, which are members of the Sound Publishing’s Olympic Peninsula News Group, are title sponsors of the Run the Peninsula series.
