DAYTON - Dayton Elementary School teachers told their students to take a hike Thursday.

And the teachers went along.

Combining participation in the Governor's Community Health Bowl Walking Challenge with a history lesson, fifth- and sixth-graders walked from the school to the Lewis and Clark Patit Creek Campsite, about five miles round trip.

The walk was a culminating event for the students, ending six weeks of keeping track of their miles with pedometers.

Dayton community members, elementary students and staff at Dayton General Hospital joined forces to see how many miles they could cover during the six weeks of the Walking Challenge, which ended Sunday night.

Communities, schools and organizations across the state have participated in the challenge, vying for top honors.

Dayton General Hospital Chief Executive Officer Bruce Grimshaw was in his office Sunday, receiving final tallies, and entering them on the official Web site.

Dayton and an Olympia community team were neck and neck for third place, but this morning the scoreboard shows Dayton with third place well in hand, with 20,889 miles, more than 2,000 miles ahead of the Olympia team.

Statewide, walkers surpassed the governor's goal of one million miles, logging in 1,238,592.5 miles.

This is the second round of walking challenges for Dayton. Last spring, walking challenges were issued between the hospital and the elementary school, with the hospital employees edging out the school by a few miles.

In this challenge, there were more than 450 participants in Dayton, according to Grimshaw.

At this point, there are no measurements of beneficial results of walking regularly, but ``we want to make Columbia County the healthiest community in the state,' Grimshaw said.

Hospital District Chief Financial Officer John Burns said this morning the walking challenge created ``a lot of excitement, a lot of talk about it here in town. It's been really fun to get some attention from the rest of the state.'

At the Patit Creek site Thursday, fifth-grade teacher John Lindsey said he had only been walking two weeks, but he had joined the spring challenge too.

``I hope we have another challenge. Last year when the challenge was over, I quit walking,' he said.

Although the Health Bowl ended Sunday, the Healthiest State in the Nation Campaign continues, and the Washington Health Foundation will launch a New Year's Resolution challenge in January, according to the foundation's Web site.

Scores of all participants, and more information about the Health Bowl, can be found at www.whf.org.