A retired Meadowview Middle School teacher spent her summer competing and winning gold medals.

Gracie Stroup, 74, was a teacher for 30 years at Meadowview Middle School. She has been spending her retirement years biking with her husband, Earl, and recently won three gold medals and a silver medal at the Senior Olympic Games in Des Moines, Iowa in late July.

She won the gold in the 5 kilometer and 10K time trials, a short distance, as well as in the 20K and 40K road races. She qualified by being one of the top four qualifiers from Tennessee to go to Des Moines. This year was Gracie’s seventh national games.

“I’ve been competing since 2011,” Gracie said. “We’ve been riding since 1986. We went on an end-to-end bicycle tour in Vermont and we sort of got hooked on it.”

Small wonder that the

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