Local special needs athletes were welcomed to Emporia State’s Welch Stadium for the second installment of the now annual Special Athletics Track and Field Day Wednesday morning.
The competition welcomed more than 200 special needs individuals to the ESU campus where athletes competed in traditional track events such as throwing and jumping and some non-traditional events such as speed walking. The track-day was developed and organized by ESU Assistant Professor of Health, Physical Education and Recreation Dr. Hannah Kipfer back in 2019.
Kipfer says the appeal of the event is that its a day where participants can “feel like everyone else.”
In addition to Kipfer, several ESU athletes and students were on hand to help run the day’s events. Among them was ESU junior physical education major Bailey Ballard who was participating for the first time.
Ballard says she gets a lot of joy out of seeing the excitement on the athlete’s faces.
ESU sophomore health and human performance major Sophia Pope was also on hand assisting with the day’s activities. Pope says she has had experience working with special needs athletes in the past and was looking for an opportunity to continue that work when she arrived at ESU.
This year’s event was Star Wars themed as it took place on the unofficial national Star Wars holiday of May the Fourth. Participants included students from member schools of the Flint Hills Special Education Cooperative and local special needs services agencies.
Rainfall in the early afternoon hours did force a portion of the day’s activities to move indoors but did not lead to any events being canceled.
Photos by Tagan Trahoon/KVOE NewsÂ
