Striving for MORE than Gold
Lockhart has a new Special Olympics team. They are the “Lockhart Bears”. Head of Delagation of TX Area 13, Elfida Tarin, from Maxwell TX, wanted her daughter Betzy to continue participating in Olympics events after graduating from special educationfrom San Marcos High School. Ms. Tarin started a “team” in August of 2004 with one member, her daughter. It was her desire to get
other persons with disabilities involved in extra curricular activities and conquer new challenges. She began talking to staff at Bluebonnet Trails MHMR and sent out letters to peers inviting them to join the team. She now has recruited fourteen team members from surrounding areas, three coaches, and several volunteers. Som athletes participate in track and field events and /or bowling. The athletes are from Lockhart: Mercy Cortez, Connie Aguilera, Jim Roberson. Bennie Etier,and Clifford Ferguson. From Luling we haveSteven Vela, Belinda Embrey,LouAnn Barsch,and Duwayne McCarty. Betzy Rosas is from Maxwell and Jay Mika is from Prairie Lea. We also have Jay Silguero, Jacqueline Tovar,and Tomas Yada participating from San Marcos.
The Lockhart Bears first big accomplishment was making to State in February 2005 in bowling competition. At the time , the team consisted of nine athletes. They traveled to Houston for competition and won eight of nine gold medals.
This past weekend the team competed in Round Rock against thirty two other Delagations, covering over six hundred athletes. Winning medals were Steven Vela: SoftballThrow-GOLDand 50m dash-SILVER, LouAnn Barsch: Softball throwSILVER,25m walk-GOLD,Belinda Embrey: Softball throw GOLD,25mwalk-SILVER, Duwayne McCarty:Softball throw-GOLD,50m dash-SILVER, Betzy Rosas: softball throw-SILVER,50m walk 4th place ribbon, Jim Roberson: softball throw,GOLD,50m dash-4th place ribbon Mercy Cortez:softball throw-GOLD, 50m dash -Bronze, Connie Aguilera: Softball throw-Gold,50m walk-SILVER and Jay Mika: Softball throwGOLD, 52m dash-GOLD. Thanks to coaches Dan and Rene Minjarez and Larry Mika and volunteers Fred and Stella Limas, Sue Williams,Barbara Vela, and Kathy Mika for devoting many hours of practice to the team.
By placing in Area events ,the team qualified to participate in State Competition at the Bobcat Stadium in San Marcos on May 19th thru22nd. Volunteers for this event will be greatly appreciated. To sign up, log on to : http://www.sotx.org/volunteer/register.do You may also cntact Elfida Tarin-512-665-4272, Stella Limas,512-644-5721 or Rene Minjarez, 512-398-3881.
