Our Story

Seth Aaron Burton

Seth was a 17-year-old student-athlete at Fairmont Senior High School and a member of the boys cross country team. On October 14, 1998, two vehicles carrying team members collided head-on while traveling to a regional meet in Apple Valley. Seth passed away. Three teammates were seriously injured and eventually recovered.

In the weeks that followed, Seth's friends filled the Burton home every day after school. They'd sit around the fire pit or hang out in Seth's room. Out of those gatherings came a four-year mission to build something lasting for the teens of Fairmont.

"Our Place" and Seth Fest

The plan was a teen center called "Our Place." Phil and Rebecca organized coffee houses in the basement of First United Methodist Church where teens served coffee from the local Book and Bean and made their own scratch cheesecake. Every spring they held Seth Fest: a morning 5k followed by an afternoon music festival at Palatine Park along the river, featuring local bands and entirely organized by the teens themselves. They held four of them.

In 2001 a professional feasibility study concluded the teen center wasn't viable. Faced with what to do with the memorial funds, a family friend's son, Jason Stalnaker, suggested building a disc golf course in Morris Park instead.

The Course Is Dedicated

In 2003 the Seth Burton Memorial Disc Golf Course was dedicated at Morris Park, designed by 1986 World Champion Johnny Sias, Jason Stalnaker, and Ken Rollins. The funds the teens had raised in Seth's name were now a permanent outdoor destination for the Fairmont community, exactly the kind of place "Our Place" was always meant to be.

The Pleasant Valley Disc Golf Classic

Before the tournament carried Seth's name, the flagship event was the Pleasant Valley Disc Golf Classic. It regularly served as the West Virginia Disc Golf Championship and was a key regional stop, backed by the neighboring City of Pleasant Valley with cash and merchandise sponsorship. As the complex grew to include Orange Crush (development started in 2007), the Classic became a two-course test. By the late 2000s it had a real reputation for mixing open hilltop holes with dense, technical woods.

Becoming the Seth Burton Memorial

Around 2011 the annual tournament was rebranded to the Seth Burton Memorial to better connect the competition to the complex's origins. Under the Fairmont Flyers Disc Golf Club, it grew into a PDGA A-Tier event drawing professional and amateur talent from across the Mid-Atlantic and beyond. Today the complex is considered one of the best in West Virginia and regularly hosts USDGC qualifiers and major state events.