On Dec. 18, 2007, Boomchain Everett Loucks was born on his family’s couch in Whale Pass, a town on Prince of Wales Island measured at 31 people in the 2010 census.

The story has kept getting better from there.

Loucks, now a senior at Wrangell High School, is the most decorated runner in Wolves history and a leading light in the running boom that has swept through the community.

“I think that he’s an inspiration to not only me, but the rest of the kids in the program, to the school and to those watching in the community,” said Mason Villarma, head cross-country coach. “There are quite a few that have rallied behind our cross-country program, which is really remarkable.

“But I would just say he’s been the catalyst of it all.”

Christy Gardner, Boomchain’s mother, had given birth to Brodie Gardner, Boomchain’s sister and a 2023 WHS graduate, by traveling to Ketchikan.

For her soon-to-be son, in the middle of winter, that trip was not as enticing.

“One of my neighbors was like, ‘I took the midwife class. We’re going to do this here. It’s going to be great,’” Christy said. “So it worked out well for everyone.”

As spectacular as the birth was, the name was even better.

As Loucks has gained notoriety by appearing at state contests in running, basketball and wrestling, the question that always follows is, “Where did that name come from?”

“Boomchains are a fantastic thing,” said Gardner, who knows the logging industry through her job with the U.S. Forest Service. “They’re one of my favorite things.”

Log rafts have two main components. The first is free-floating bundles of logs. The second is boomsticks that are attached together to surround the log bundles and keep them from floating free.

The boomsticks have holes at each end. A boomchain is run through those holes to attach logs to each other.

“He loves his name,” Gardner said of her son. “He said he’s going to have 10 kids — he still says he is — and he’s going to name them all Boomchain Everett Loucks.”

“I said, ‘OK, George Foreman,’” referring to the championship boxer who gave his five sons the name George.

Loucks grew up in Whale Pass wrestling, playing basketball and just being an outside kid in general.

“We didn’t have Wi-Fi there,” Loucks said.

Gardner said there is extended family in Wrangell, which is an hour by boat from Whale Pass in good weather.

Both her kids would go back and forth between Wrangell and Whale Pass. Both switched to the Wrangell school system in third grade.

Brodie Gardner was the salutatorian of her class and now attends Washington State University. Loucks has a 3.7 grade-point average that has opened the door to a college running career.

Before high school, though, Loucks didn’t even know such a door existed. He saw himself as a wrestler and basketball player. He had done some running, but with no major success.

Then came a perfect confluence of factors during his freshmen year.

The first was Villarma, a standout middle distance runner who did his high school running in Washington state, then ran for Gonzaga University before graduating in 2019.

Villarma said his family goes back four generations in Wrangell. He had been coming to Wrangell to commercial fish since the age of 3.

When Villarma took the borough finance director job in 2021, the running scene was set to change dramatically. He was the cross-country head coach by the end of the 2022 season.

“He’s a big role model in my life,” Loucks said. “When I was a freshman, I didn’t know if I was really going to run that much or be that good. Mason got everybody on the team a lot better and aligned to running.

“Because I’d say before, our running teams were not very good, and also they weren’t into it.”

Villarma, who became borough manager in 2023, did not know Loucks before that freshman year of 2022, but the coach was immediately impressed by his drive and ability to deal with discomfort.

“I really gravitated to him as a freshman, just because he had all the tools to be an exceptional runner and athlete,” Villarma said. “He was willing to put in the work at an early age. He wanted to be great. You could just sense it.”

The Wrangell boys won the Division III state meet in 2022 — the first state cross-country title for the Wolves. Sophomore Daniel Harrison gave Wrangell its first individual state title.

The backbone of the team was seniors Devlyn Campbell, Ethan Blatchley, Elias Decker and Randy Churchill.

Villarma said those seniors got the fire started and Loucks took it from there.

“They were all so hard-working and determined,” Loucks said. “We would go out and have fun on trips, but when it was time to lock in and get the job done, they all went out and did it.”

Loucks has shown all-around athletic talent. He made the Division II state wrestling tournament in his freshman through junior years. As a basketball point guard, he helped the Wolves to fourth place at Division 2A state as a freshman, then sixth place as a junior and senior.

After that freshman year at state cross-country, though, Loucks noted the times that others were running and decided he could be pretty good.

That led to another level of dedication heading into sophomore year.

“He was reading about it and training with Mason’s encouragement, but then also on his own,” Gardner said. “He’s just a really strong worker, and I’m proud of him for that.”

Loucks won the Division III state title as a sophomore, while the Wolves repeated as team champions. He credited teammate Keegan Hansen, a senior that season who was second at state, with providing motivation in practices and meets.

“At that point, I wanted to keep running, and I wanted to run in college,” Loucks said.

As a junior in 2024, Loucks was undefeated against Division III competition heading into state. Then disaster struck.

He was going up a hill on the course at Bartlett High School in Anchorage when he passed out. Villarma called it the scariest thing he’s seen in his running and coaching career.

Loucks said he hadn’t been feeling good in a few weeks and was feeling especially bad that day.

The thing about great runners is that discomfort is often a signal to try harder.

“I started to feel a little bad, but I was just like, ‘I’m just going to have to run for 10 more minutes and push through it,’” Loucks said.

The immediate question in the aftermath of the race was whether Loucks’ running dreams were over.

Loucks, Gardner and Villarma traveled to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Oregon to see a cardiologist. The test showed that Loucks could continue his running career.

“He was so happy to get on that treadmill, like he was able to do the treadmill test,” Gardner said. “He went the second longest, I guess, that they ever had anybody go.”

Loucks felt good enough to participate in wrestling and then basketball, but the real test came in spring 2025. He was one of two runners at Wrangell to run track. It was the first time in a long time the Wolves had anybody compete in track.

“I think we were a little bit nervous coming into the track season, but he did run some track meets and started looking good again,” Villarma said.

Loucks was fourth in the 800- and 1,600-meter runs at the Division II state track meet in late May.

Back at full health, his senior cross-country season was an individual success. He opened the campaign by running 16 minutes, 8.5 seconds, at the Milk Run Classic in Wrangell to reset his own school record, plus blow past Villarma’s high school cross-country best of 16:22.8. On Oct. 4, Loucks won his second Division III state title.

What stood out to Villarma this season is how much Loucks’ leadership abilities came to the fore.

His senior project is helping to coach the middle school cross-country team. Loucks said coach Laura Davies has been instrumental in getting 24 runners out for the program.

“It’s awesome just to give back and give them what I know about the sport,” Loucks said. “Hopefully they take it up like I took it up.”

Villarma and Davies also amped up the girls program at the high school this season. There were 21 runners on the girls and boys teams — one-third of the high school enrollment.

Freshman Jenna Meissner and Loucks were undefeated against Southeast runners this season. At state, Meissner won the first girls cross-country title in school history. She also led the team to the first state title for a Wolves girls team — in any sport — in school history.

Villarma said Loucks was always happy to jump in a workout and help the girls.

Loucks said there was only one girls runner on the team his freshman year, and a few more as a sophomore. He said Davies started getting more girls out when Loucks was a junior.

“She really got all the kids involved this year,” he said. “They all just wanted to come to practice every day and just get better. So it was awesome to see the girls team evolve and get their championship.”

Loucks still has a few cross-country meets in the Lower 48 planned for this season. He will not wrestle as a senior. He’s also not sure if he will play basketball because he wants to focus on track to draw even more attention from colleges.

Villarma said he is only 10 years older than Loucks, so Loucks has almost become a younger brother to him. The coach looks forward to a successful track season and college commitment that will cap a remarkable prep career.

“It’s a special thing when you find an athlete that has the passion for running that you do, and you kind of delve into it at that high a level,” Villarma said. “It’s a very unique thing that doesn’t come around, but maybe once or a couple times, in a whole coaching career.”