On Thursday, April 21st, Waynesville High School hosted the Missouri Special Olympics for its surrounding areas. Many special athletes from all around the area came to compete and show off their talents. Many students here at Rolla High volunteered to help out with the event. Junior Grant Akins was one of many who helped make this day possible for these athletes.
“I first decided to volunteer because I had a lot of other friends going to help out too, but I also thought it was a great way to help out these people and help give them a day to get out and enjoy doing things they love,” Akins said.
Rolla had kids from all ages competing in the events; from elementary students to High School kids. The athletes would compete 3 different events. The events available running events-either short distance or long distance. The next available event choice was jumping events, athletes could compete in either standing long jump or running long jump. And the last available event was the throwing event. The options were either hurling a softball, or a javelin throw. Akins said the favorite about his time volunteering was watching his athlete have a lot of fun competing.
“I would have to say my favorite part of the day was watching not only my athelte, but the every single kid get the chance to have their own day and get out and have a lot of fun,” Akins said.
Without a doubt the special olympics does a great job of bringing all sorts of different groups together. Area Law enforcement were at the games the whole time to cheer on the athletes and present medals. It brought together a lot of the community to support these special athletes and cheer them on. These games are a great model for how athletics are intended to be. And that was what Junior Seth Hofhiens enjoyed the most about the day.
“I thought the Special Olympics did a great job of showing what athletics really should be about. At these games the winners and losers didn’t matter, the important thing to these kids was getting to be able to have fun and get the recognition they deserve. I thought it was really awesome to see all these people get a day just for them to have fun and have others cheer them on,” Hofhiens said.