Wow! How can we begin to describe the excitement and pride Maine residents felt, especially those of us here in the Boothbay region, when one of our own, Ellie Logan, earned her unprecedented third straight Olympic gold medal as a member of the women’s coxed eight rowing team? We checked out the Welcome to Boothbay Harbor sign, Home of Ellie Logan, Olympic Gold Medalist, for fear it might say two-time winner, but somebody with foresight was smart enough not to pinpoint her number of wins.

We’ve all been watching her career, as she won one national and international competition after another. She was only a freshman at Brooks School in North Andover when the rowing bug bit her, and she helped them win national titles in both 2004 and 2005 before attending Stanford and becoming an All-American rower.

The 28-year-old 2011 history major graduate has spent much of her time in Princeton, New Jersey training for the Rio games. She’s a driven young lady, and has brought great honor to our community, a town where her father, Bill Logan’s family, has been a household name for generations, known not only for their popular shops, but for their involvement and leadership role in numerous community organizations. For a number of years, Ellie’s mother, Jennifer, worked as a reporter on this newspaper, with her byline appearing weekly on both hard news stories and features. While we have shared Ellie with other communities over the years, as far as we are concerned, she’s “ours’’ and the townspeople went all out after her previous Olympic wins to let her know how much we care. 

She’s now hoping to get to spend some time with her husband, Carlo Dinares, whom she married in 2015, a former rower on the Spanish competitive team. We’ll wager a guess he hasn’t been able to spend much time with her, thanks to her rigorous training schedule.

She says she also plans a visit to Boothbay Harbor later this year. We’ll all be waiting to welcome this outstanding young female athlete when she arrives.