When Barbe's Kennedi Burks looks back on her 2025 La. high school indoor season, she is going to have to ask herself a question. Which 400m record did you she enjoy breaking the most?
Was it her opener at the McNeese Indoor No.1 where she broke her own meet record of 55.70 and received a belt buckle as a token for her efforts. Or was it the LSU Last Chance Qualifier where Burks (55.01) broke her own fieldhouse composite record?
RACE VIDEO: Watch Barbe's Kennedi Burks run the fastest 400m in Louisiana history.
While those two races were special, Burks saved her best for last...or, maybe latest...in winning Saturday's LHSAA State Indoor Championships blazing to a time of 54.36. It's the first time in history that a Louisiana female sprinter has run under 55 seconds indoors.
"It feels great," Burks said after the race. "It's always nice to have such a time and leave somehing behind, but yeah, I'm going to take this title and move on with my outdoor season."
"The goal is always to PR," Burks said. "Coming into the state meet, I knew I had some good competitors in my heat and I knew they were going to push me through that first lap so I just used that to finish strong."
It was Burks' last high school appearance inside the Carl Maddox Fieldhouse, a place where the LSU signee will spend many hours training and competing as you makes the transition to the next phase of her career, but some pre-meet jitters had her mind on other things.
"I was so nervous, I didn't really think get a chance to think about that," Burks said of her last time walking into the Carl Maddox Field House as a high school athlete. "But now that it's over, it's starting to kind of hit me slowly. I'm just going to take it and move on and enjoy every single moment for the rest of my season."
Before Saturday, the fastest time indoors belonged to St. Louis Catholic senior Hannah Boullion, who ran a 55.00 at the FasTrak HS Indoor Challenge in Houston, Texas in December. That performance was on the banked track at the University of Houston.
With the kind of time that Burks ran on Saturday, you would expect that she would be all alone, but that was not the case. Woodlawn (Baton Rouge) sophomore Jaleyia Woods was not far behind. Woods time of 55.44 is the fastest time ever run indoors by a Louisiana sophomore and ranks No.3 All-Time behind Boullion and Burks.
Burks was asked if she had any advice for Woods or any other sprinter who has aspirations reach or surpass her accomplishments.
"Just to stay true and confident to yourself," Burks said. "Just step on the track with the confidence that you can do whatever you put your mind to."
When Burks is not on the track, she enjoys spending time with friends and family. When she is on the track, Burks has family with her. Her mother is her coach.
"It's been so special," Burks said about having her mother as her coach. "She has been coaching me for half of her career, even though she was coaching before me. So every step I took, she took with me. So it's nice that I can end the way I started."