Trail runs cold: Help Bee Curious find the man behind a mysterious American River plaque

Along the American River, near the West Guy Bridge and California State University, Sacramento, lies a grey plaque that hails to Mark “The Wing” Williams.

It reads:

“[A] Civil Engineering student at CSUS in Nov. 1985 hurled a stone across the River from this point, a distance measured (EDM) to be 497 feet. He repeated this feat often in the presence of his classmates.

AWESOME!”

But who is this famed thrower? A resident reached out to Bee Curious, after attempting to look into who Mark “The Wing” is and whether he can still throw, to track this “legend” down.

The Bee reached out to multiple representatives of Sacramento State, including the public information office — who forwarded inquiries to former and current staff, the alumni center and a former history professor and author of “California State University, Sacramento: The First Forty Years, 1947-1987,” but to no avail.

Do you know the story behind this plaque? Or have you heard rumors about it? We want to know.

Share your tips about this plaque in the form below or by emailing us at utilityteam@sacbee.com.

This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.