It’s 9 p.m. on another bitter-cold night in December and Sarah Hines is doing her work in an empty hallway of West Elk High.

Classes were let out six hours ago and basketball practice ended a hour ago, yet Hines remains, obsessively honing her craft.

She carried in hurdles and measured down to the inch in a long stretch of hallway because, well, there is nowhere else you can practice hurdles at this hour in the town of Howard, population 649, located 90 minutes southeast of Wichita.

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