EAST HELENA — East Helena High School’s football team celebrated its largest collegiate signing class in program history on National Signing Day, as three Vigilantes signed national letters of intent Wednesday morning.
East Helena seniors Jack Taylor and Slade Olson will attend and play for Dickinson State, an NAIA school in North Dakota that will join the Frontier Conference next season. East Helena senior Hayden Wright will attend and play for Montana Western, a longtime Frontier Conference school in Dillon.
The trio of signees were the core of East Helena’s first-ever playoff football team this season. East Helena first fielded a varsity football team in 2021.
“I think it’s really cool that in our second-ever varsity season ... that we already have three kids going to college,” said Wright. “And I think it just sets the path for the youth of East Helena. They really see that we have athletes that produce.”
Each of the three signees said that their bond off the field carried over onto the field during their high school careers.
“It means a lot,” Taylor said of sharing his signing ceremony with Wright and Olson. “Seeing us all grow together over the years, play football together over the years, and us all three signing together now, it's a great feeling. Seeing that all of us will be playing at the next level, continuing with what we love to do.”
In the trio’s freshman season — the Vigilantes’ first as a varsity program — East Helena lost every game it played. But these three college signees didn’t quit. Instead, they helped build what is now a competitive program.
“(I) couldn’t be more proud,” said Olson. “I think we cleared out the path to show the younger kids that if they follow what we did, put in the work that we did, they’ll find success and accomplishments in what they do.”
And on the topic of pride, perhaps no one is more proud of what Wright, Taylor and Olson accomplished throughout their high school careers than East Helena’s head football coach, Tyler Murray.
“I think it started when they were freshmen,” said Murray. “Like, they wanted to go and do all the extra things. They showed up for camps. They came every day for lifting and really just stuck to what we encourage all of our kids to do. And like I said, they had the skill and the talent to do that, and then just saw it all the way through.”
