Mark Zinnel the first Class A boys individual champion
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Cross country has been run in Minnesota for a long time with the origins of the sport in Minnesota going back all the way to 1925 when Minneapolis Roosevelt's Arne Olson won the state title with a time of 14:14.3 for a 2.5 mile race.
All high schools in Minnesota were invited to send teams to compete in the State Meet sponsored by the University of Minnesota Cross Country Club and its coach, Emil Iverson. Teams were allowed to enter five and four would score.
This was the format until 1928. In 1943 the MSHSL decided to start sponsoring a state cross country meet. A state meet has been held continuously since then, apart from the 2020 COVID year which caused a MSHSL state meet cancellation.
From 1943 to 1974 the MSHSL meet was a one-class affair for boys cross country. In 1975, girls' cross country was added and was a one-class affair from 1975-77. From 1978 until 2021 it was a two-class for both boys and girls based on student enrollment. Beginning in 2021 it was expanded to a three-class event based on student enrollment.
Here we look at those Class A champions since it's inception! The school for each class have changed over the year, so if you don't see an expected champion for a given year, it might have been in a different class. For example, Carrie Tollefson won 5 XC titles, 3 in Class A and 2 in Class AA.