Special Olympics regional to start Saturday

The bottom line of the webpage introduction for the Lewis-Clark Storm Special Olympics program reads, “Special Olympics changes lives.” The organization will play host to the Northern Regional Special Olympics tournament Saturday at Bryden Canyon Golf Course and Airport Park.

The event will feature around 150 athletes with disabilities coming to Lewiston to participate in rounds of golf, and softball and bocce games. Visiting teams will come from Moscow, Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint and Priest River. Opening ceremonies will take place at 8:45 a.m. and games will start at 9.

Alongside the Special Olympians will be several dozen non-disabled “Unified Athletes” to serve on the field as teammates, as well as 30-plus volunteer officials.

“It’s great fun working with all the athletes and the volunteers,” L-C Storm program coordinator Cindy Templeton said. “Because we’re all volunteers. Everyone’s here for the same reason: what’s best for the athletes.”

Templeton is in her second year with the Storm, having retired to Lewiston after spending 16 years at Camp Foster military base in Okinawa, Japan, as principal of a Department of Defense school for children of personnel.

She was introduced to the L-C program by her sister, Hildie Hohnstein, who is a longtime volunteer and current administrative coordinator there. Hohnstein’s son, Wesley, will be playing for the Storm softball team.

“My sister decided I needed something to do,” Templeton recalled, laughing. “She said, ‘You can run a school, so you can help us.’”

The Storm boast in the neighborhood of 100 athletes ranging in age from “nine to 90,” about 50 of whom will participate in the event. Along with Lewiston and Clarkston, the team includes athletes hailing from Lapwai, Orofino and Peck. The program is financed primarily through fundraisers such as raffles and car washes, of which Templeton said the Lewis-Clark Valley community is “so supportive.”

L-C’s most famous current athlete is James “The Speeding Bullet” Dawson of Lewiston, who won a gold medal in the pentathlon at the Special Olympics World Games in April. Dawson will participate this time around as another member of the softball team.

The golf tournament will feature a two-person team format with pairings of one Special Olympian and one Unified Athlete taking turns in an alternate-shot format. Bocce play at Airport Park will have separate brackets for two-person and four-person teams, while softball, also at Airport Park, will feature one to two teams from each participating program competing in a round-robin format.

Top finishers will be recognized at the conclusion of the event, and there will be a barbecue for participants and family members at Airport Park afterward.

The regional will not serve as qualifiers for State or higher-level competitions, as the sports featured are not among those sanctioned by larger Special Olympics governing bodies.

“It’s what we can find the interest in,” Templeton said of her program’s choice of events. “We have different sports every season, and it’s what’s available to us. There are other sports we could offer, but we have to have volunteers to run them and also have athletes.”

After this, the Storm will begin fall bowling season, with the first meeting to be at 3 p.m. Sunday at Lancer Lanes Bowling Alley in Clarkston.

For Templeton and others, the value of the Special Olympics program transcends any particular sport and lies more with the sense of community it creates.

“I think my nephew kind of says it a lot: they’re like a family,” Templeton said. “They look forward to being seen with each other; they take care of each other. After athletes leave school, they don’t really have a place to connect, so Special Olympics provides an opportunity for them to connect and support each other as well as have a great time.”