LEWISTON — Kelly Bennett Brown laughed when she recalled the rumor that was swirling around Lewiston when her family moved here prior to her junior year in high school.

The Bennetts were moving from West Germany, and word that Kelly played basketball and her twin brother, Kevin, played soccer raised expectations that the Blue Devils were about to welcome a couple of blue-chip sports stars.

“So they were expecting this big East German girl and it was me,” said the petite Brown.

Lewiston fans weren’t disappointed very long, once they found out Brown was a scrappy point guard and outstanding distance runner with a competitive fire that has yet to be extinguished, even as she turns 50.

The impact Brown made in her short career at Lewiston, four years of cross country at the University of Southern Maine and over 30 years of running in Maine has earned her induction into the Auburn/Lewiston Sports Hall of Fame this Sunday.

“I’m very, very flattered and honored,” said the 1982 Lewiston graduate. “I was a little surprised that I was even nominated because I was only (at Lewiston High School) two years.”

Her father, Joseph, was a civilian employee for the Department of Defense in West Germany with a passion for running and got her started early. Brown attended school with other American expatriates and played sports year-round. She played basketball and softball, ran cross country and track, and in between tagged along with her brother to the soccer pitch, where she was usually the only girl playing the country’s most popular sport.

Brown excelled at running and competed in European championships, recalling one meet in particular that was held at the practice track used in the 1972 Munich Olympics.

“Because the Army brats come and go, there was always a high level of performers,” she said. “I ran against some girls that turned out to be NCAA champions later on.”

She quickly found success when she moved to Maine, finishing ninth in Class A at the 1980 state cross country meet. In the spring, she was an SMAA champion hurdler.

Her senior year, she finished eighth in Western A and 20th at states. In basketball, she was an SMAA All-Star and helped the Blue Devils to an 11-6 record and an unexpected tournament berth.

She enrolled at USM and, after dabbling in basketball for one semester, focused on cross country (the school did not have track and field at the time). She quickly became the Huskies top runner but didn’t reach her peak until after she took a year-and-a-half break from college.

She returned in 1986 and considered going out for soccer, “but I came to my senses and ended up going out for cross country. (USM cross country coach) George Towle was very happy,” she said.

Brown had started training for marathons during her sabbatical, and the benefits were readily apparent in cross country. She won two of the first three meets she entered, including the season-opening Can-Am meet at Bates College. She went on to set new course records at the USM and UMO invitationals, win at the University of Maine at Augusta and finish third at the Codfish Bowl in Boston.

But the crowning achievement, according to Brown, was winning the state meet going away.

“It was a pretty clean win,” she said. “Tina Meserve, who ran for Orono, told me this past summer about how cocky the Maine girls were that they were going to win, and I beat them all. The ECAC was a lot closer.”

She won the ECAC Division III championship at Stony Brook and qualified for the NCAA nationals, where she finished 70th overall. Her exploits earned her induction into USM’s Husky Hall of Fame in 1993.

Brown didn’t slow down after college. She continued running and improving, even while starting a family (she has two daughters, ages 21 and 24).

She entered her first Beach to Beacon in 1998 and finished third among Maine females. In 1999, she finished ninth.

In 1990, breast cancer claimed the life of her mother, Yolande, a Lewiston native. With that in mind, Brown had an early screening done in 2007 which detected a lump. Fortunately, the cancer was discovered in its earliest stages.

“Obviously, I didn’t feel sick or anything, so it was almost like watching someone else have it,” Brown said. “It was so weird. I never said ‘Why me?’ because I didn’t feel like I had it. It was the strangest thing.”

“They did a couple of lumpectomies and didn’t have a clear margin so I just decided to have everything taken,” she said.

Brown elected to undergo a double mastectomy and reconstruction. After a few weeks recovery, she jumped right back into speed workouts and racing.

“I ran great, so it was almost like I was watching someone else go through it; except one day when my daughters just broke down and said they were really scared that I was going to die,” she said. “I didn’t know that they were feeling that, probably because I didn’t feel sick or anything. That was just a wake-up, having to reassure them. But I feel like I bounced back quickly. Now, I mean, I was healthy before, but I’m always looking to get healthier and eat healthy and instill that in my kids, too.”

She continues to run in local road races and marathons and on Monday ran her third Boston Marathon.

She wasn’t just running to take part in the emotional event, either. Brown wanted to beat  as many younger runners as she could.

“I’m still very competitive. It’s more internal. It’s hard to explain, because I do get really nervous before races,” said Brown, who is an English Language Learner teacher in the Westbrook school system.

“I can not imagine not running,” she said. “I feel like I want to be out there when I’m 80, running a little race. My next goal is to get into masters running, even track meets, because I feel like I have something I can do at age 50.”