An exciting weekend of bowling culminated Monday, October 27th with an awards ceremony and announcement of the local Special Olympics bowlers who will advance to the state tournament in Anchorage later this month. “We had a record number of athletes this year with 36 bowlers participating all through our training and local competitions and that’s been a wonderful turnout and we work hard to accommodate anyone who wants to come and bowl,” said Special Olympics bowling coach Tina Strayhorn. Athletes begin their training in August according to coach Strayhorn, “We have eight weeks of mandatory practice each athlete to complete twenty four games in order to qualify for the local tournament which gives them a chance to advance to the state competition the weekend prior to Thanksgiving. The athletes love bowling and it’s one of our largest growing activities. Younger people are getting involved and loving it and of course we have athletes up to 68 years of age bowling with us so we have a wide variety of ages and they all truly love it. We make accommodations for anyone who wants to come out and bowl. We do this to have our Special Olympic athletes be part of the community and we encourage everyone to get involved, come out and watch, support and cheer us on,” said Strayhorn.

Following the state tournament spring activities that include basketball and swimming which also a fun time for the athletes according to Strayhorn. “We are always looking for volunteers and never have enough and anyone interested can go on line to the Special Olympic website and download a volunteer form and bring it to us or you can contact us directly and we’ll get you a form or pick one up at anyone of our events, we always have them with us. Right now we are recruiting for basketball and swimming coaches and if anyone has one night a week for eight weeks for basketball or swimming we’d love to hear from them. You can reach me at 907-223-1255 or like us on Facebook and learn about sponsorship opportunities as well for our local athletes.”