Marietta High School cross country team holding their plaque — c. 1963–1965, with Charlie Eesley

The Marietta High School cross country team, with Charlie Eesley third from the left. Eight young men in matching dark long-sleeve quarter-zip pullovers and dark sweatpants, lined up outdoors on the school grounds in front of a brick school building with a large tree overhead. The two center teammates (fourth and fifth from the left) present a small plaque or trophy between them. Far-left figure wears a varsity letter jacket — possibly the team manager. Black-and-white print, c. 1963 to 1965.

Charlie on the team

Charlie Eesley is the third figure from the left — confirmed by Chuck Eesley June 2026 — identifiable by the same blonde buzz cut as the family portrait of the Will and Peggy Eesley family with Joe Kamiab c. 1965. He stands just to the left of the two teammates who hold the plaque at the center of the team.

What this frame records

Charlie’s 12th-grade autobiography frames him as a serious Marietta High School student in academics; his athletic life appears here in a way the autobiography does not detail. The team’s handwritten caption Charlie attached to that autobiography says “Cross-country team after winning second place in the district last year,” matching Chapter V’s “district silver medal junior year” — so the plaque the two center figures hold is the district silver-medal plaque, and the season ran the year before this autobiography (1963–64 cross country season, Charlie’s junior year).

The image’s date

The image style, the team uniforms, the matching haircuts, and Charlie’s apparent age (fifteen to seventeen) put the photograph at c. 1963 to 1965, his high-school years (he graduated Marietta High School in 1965). If the frame is fall 1964, Charlie would have been a junior or senior. The teammates’ identities are queued for further research; Marietta High School yearbooks from 1964 and 1965 would name them.

Source: Eesley family archive, transmitted by Chuck Eesley 2026.