Mission Valley Special Olympics experience exponential growth

For the second-consecutive season in a row, the ever-expanded Special Olympics in the Mission Valley had a strong showing at the Montana Special Olympics State games in Great Falls.

Five area schools represented the Mission Valley and the reservation this year at the Special Olympics.

“That is a component with the movement with the Special Olympics to be unified and play unified,” Tribal outreach director April Charlo said. “We always have people with intellectual disabilities train and compete with adults that don’t have intellectual disabilities and it is so beautiful to watch the interactions between them.”Mission Bulldogs student Jace Matt, a student without an intellectual disability, was excited to be a member of a team that placed first, according to Charlo.

“He was just so excited he kept saying ‘I can’t believe we won,’ and he is actually a Mission High School student who doesn’t have an intellectual disability,” Charlo said. “He was over the moon that he won a gold medal. It is really cool to see what the games do for a kid without an intellectual disability. They are just as prideful with the student with an intellectual disability to see them just as high flying.”

The Mission Valley Special Olympics have expanded the amount of teams that have participated in the games since Charlo took over in Jan. of 2016.

“My job when I was hired in 2016 was to start a Special Olympics program on the reservation and in the schools,” Charlo said. “My primary job was to recruit someone to take on the volunteer role, go into the schools and raise money for uniforms, training equipment, and traveling to and from competitions.”

Charlo said getting the right team together to make this ever-growing sport in the Mission Valley increase in size “took a minute.”

“I know the teachers, schools and faculty were really overwhelmed and we didn’t get many teams to participate in the May games,” Charlo said. By the year 2017, momentum had started to happen and we took a step forward in the main summer games in 2017. Now, Mission, Charlo, Polson, Arlee and Ronan all participate in the games.”

Charlo also mentioned Ronan has nearly doubled its size in Special Olympic participants in 2016.

“They have nearly doubled in numbers of athletes and volunteers,” Charlo said. “They have five participates securely in place that participates in the area games in the first week and may travel to the Summer Games as well.”

This year, the Mission Valley will have two representatives that qualified for the Special Olympic United States Games in Seattle.

Chandler Krahn, who was also a member of the Charlo Vikings’ football team, will participate in power-lifting and Chance Hoover will participate in bocce ball.

“The Special Olympics is really coming alive for the Flathead Reservation,” Charlo said. “The parents are traveling and watching their kids. It’s awesome to see the kids interact with each other. If you want to fill your (emotional) bucket moment, come to the Special Olympics.”