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Show Developmental Disabled Special Olympics attract children Nearly 50 developmentally disabled children and adults from Iron and Washington counties will participate in the State Special Olympics May 12-13 in Salt Lake City. Nearly 600 spectators were on hand recently at the Thunderbird Stadium, Southern Utah State College, to support the Area Special Olympics which were held as a prelude to the state field and track contest. "Over 60 developmentally disabled citizens from Iron, Washington, Beaver and Garfield counties competed in the 50 and 200-yard dashes, 440-yard relay, standing long jump and baseball throw," Virginia Higbee, Area Special Olympics Coordinator, said. A large traveling trophy was awarded the Dixie delegation, under the direction of Jim Hilton, Dixie Special Olympics Coordinator, as overall winners in the annual southern Utah meet. "Special Olympics games are probably some of the most exciting athletic contests ever held. In these games, everyone is a winner, win-ner, everyone gets ribbons for their efforts," Mrs. Higbee said. "The developmentally disabled tend to be excluded from any kind of event which involves competition. The Special Olympics were developed to give these people a chance to compete against other people, and even more important, to compete against their own best time," she said. The Cedar City games were made especially exciting ex-citing for the participants, she said, because of the large cheering section which included the entire student body from the Cedar City South Elenetary, "We'd like to thank the many people who helped make the Area Special Olympics so successful including the SUSC Physical Education Department for their help as timers, community com-munity businesses for their varied support including the donation of several beautiful trophies, Assistant Coordinator Coor-dinator Gene Wikle, and the nurses from the Weber State-SUSC-Dixie Cooperative Nursing Program," Higbee said. |