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Local residents are brimming with pride over Bill Demong's gold medal winning performance in the large hill nordic combined individual event at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Demong won the 10-kilometer cross-country portion of the event in a time of 25 minutes, 32.9 seconds, four seconds ahead of Johnny Spillane of Steamboat Springs, Colo., who claimed his third silver medal of the games. Bernhard Gruber of Austria, who had a 34-second head start after jumping off the large hill earlier in the day, won the bronze, 10.8 seconds back.

Residents of the small hamlet of Vermontville, where Demong grew up, could hardly contain their excitement after hearing about his gold-medal winning performance.

"We're thrilled for him, his family and his teammates," said town of Franklin Town Clerk Sandy Oliver, who lives just down the street from the Demong family, and whose mother was Bill's babysitter for a time. "We're so proud of him."

"We were rooting for him all the way," said Roger Symonds, a town of Franklin justice who's good friends with Demong's parents. "We're so happy he did as well as he did for our country."

Before the Olympics, Symonds put a big banner on the front of the town hall that said "Good luck Bill Demong." The town now plans to put a message on the billboard in front of the town hall that reads "Hurray Bill Demong, Gold Medal, We're So Proud of You and All Local Olympians!"

"The thing we're proud of is that even though he's been all over the world, he's continued to say 'I'm from Vermontville,'" Symonds said. "I guess he hasn't forgotten where he was raised and that's a good thing. He's a great young man."

At Mount Pisgah Ski Center in Saranac Lake, manager Matt Cook, who grew up cross-country skiing with Demong at Dewey Mountain, said he never doubted that his friend could accomplish what he did.

"It certainly was always within Billy's ability to do something like this," Cook said. "Even from the very beginning he had so much drive, and he was always so competitive. It was in his blood."

Ethan Wood, a 10-year-old nordic skier from Saranac Lake, followed the race on the Internet with his parents. He said he was "excited" by the performance.

"It's going to motivate me," Wood said. "I actually have a big ski race on Saturday and Sunday."

Saranac Lake Central School Superintendent Gerald Goldman, principal at the high school when Demong was a teenager, described him as a good student and "a very interesting kid." Goldman recalled catching Demong trying to scale a 40-foot brick wall outside the gym one day.

"He was about three-quarters of the way up the wall, and there was really no way to hold on," Goldman said. "I told him to go to the top or come down, whatever was more comfortable."

Goldman also recalled a conversation with Demong's mother, Helen, a music teacher at the high school, just before she left for the Vancouver Olympics.

"I was joking with Helen and I said, 'Hey, if there's no medals, it's going to be a big disappointment,'" Goldman recalled. "She said 'Don't put the pressure on us.'"

Goldman called Demong's gold-medal winning performance "amazing."

"I'm happy for Billy, and I'm happy for his family," he said. "It's just an incredible accomplishment for him. He's been working at this for so long."

After winning a gold medal Thursday, Demong was selected to be the flag bearer for the U.S. Olympic team at the closing ceremony on Sunday. But the celebration didn't end there. He also proposed to his girlfriend, Katie Koczynski.

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Mike Lynch contributed to this report.

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Contact Chris Knight at 891-2600 ext. 24 or cknight@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.