When he stood on the podium at the 2024 MHSAA Class 6A state track meet, silver medal hanging from his neck, Dwight Palmer was not smiling a bit.

The race he’d just finished second in, the boys 200 meters, should have been his. He’d lost to Grenada’s Chance Jenkins, a runner he’d beaten the week before, by a tenth of a second.

“I knew I was supposed to beat him, because I beat him at North State. I think that’s why it stuck with me longer,” Palmer said.

Palmer made the decision, then and there, that it wasn’t going to happen again — and it hasn’t.

The Warren Central junior did not lose at all this season in the 200 meters. He went 8-for-8, capped by a dominant performance to win the state championship. He added the Class 6A state titles in the 100 and 400 meters for good measure to become the first Warren County athlete to sweep all three sprint championships in the same season since St. Aloysius’ DeMichael Harris in 2016.

Palmer can now add one more gold medal to his haul as The Vicksburg Post’s boys track and field Athlete of the Year. He’s the first Warren Central athlete to win the boys award since it was started in 2014.

“It feels real good,” the soft-spoken Palmer said.

What didn’t feel good was the bitter loss last year. A photo of Palmer taken on the podium that day shows the anguish in his face. While finishing second in the state is quite an accomplishment, for Palmer it was like guzzling a Gatorade bottle full of battery acid.

“Last year he lost at state in the 200. He came to me and said, ‘I’m fixing to be on a mission. I won’t lose like this again,’” Warren Central coach Corey Wilson said. “He just started working hard every day, coming to practice and doing what he’s supposed to do and that’s why he turned out with a triple crown this year.”

The work started last summer, when Palmer was running on the AAU circuit. He finished third in the country in the boys’ 15-16-year-olds’ 200 meter dash at the AAU Junior Olympics in Greensboro, N.C.

He then blasted out of the blocks in the 2025 high school season by winning all three sprint races at the season-opening Viking Invitational on his home track in February and never let up through a redemption run in the 200 meters at Pearl High School in May.

In 23 combined starts in the 100, 200 and 400 meters this season, Palmer won 19 times. He did not lose to a Class 6A runner in the 100 and 400, and not at all in the 200.

“It’s the first time I ever witnessed that. I’ve had guys that worked pretty hard, but I think Dwight is the most determined kid that I’ve ever seen,” Wilson said. “It was somehing to see. He made history, at least out here at Warren Central.”

Palmer’s season for the ages was capped with his sprint triple crown at the state meet on May 3. He won the 100 meters in 10.73 seconds, the 400 in 49.12, and then the 200 in 21.84.

He won the 400 meters by more than a second over Callaway’s Jeremiah Austin. The 200 was a bit closer, but still a comfortable three-tenths of a second — about five meters on the track – over Terry’s Jaydon Brown.

“I feel a big relief,” Palmer said of winning the 200. “But I’ve still got to do it again next year.”
Palmer does, indeed, get to run it back for his senior season in 2026. He obviously wants to add three more gold medals to his collection, plus a lot more. He wants a piece of history.

The MHSAA state record of 21.03 seconds in the 200 meters was set by Vicksburg’s Terrell Smith in 2014. Harris ran 20.87 two years later at the MAIS state meet, and he remains the only person in either of Mississippi’s high school associations to go under 21 seconds at a state meet.

Palmer wants to beat both of them.

“I’m trying to hit 20.8 in the 200,” Palmer said. “That’s a big deal. If you get under 21, you get a scholarship. That’s what I’m trying to get to.”

Vicksburg Post boys Athletes of the Year
2025 – Dwight Palmer, Warren Central
2024 – Koury Vample, Vicksburg
2023 – Tyler Henderson, Vicksburg
2022 – Daniel Llopis, Porter’s Chapel
2021 – Brennon Williams, St. Aloysius
2020 – No winner (COVID)
2019 – Brennon Williams, St. Aloysius
2018 – Connor Bottin, St. Aloysius
2017 – Donald Woodson, St. Aloysius
2016 – DeMichael Harris, St. Aloysius
2015 – DeMichael Harris, St. Aloysius
2014 – Terrell Smith, Vicksburg