CARRABASSETT VALLEY – Afraid of sounding too much like a Hallmark card, Frank Theriault qualified his reasons for volunteering at Special Olympics Maine’s Winter Games for 25 years straight. “Seeing what happiness and joy” the event brings to competitors, he explained.
But after a day and a half of competition, parties, dinners and medal awards, when the 36th annual games came to a close at midday Tuesday, most everyone said they couldn’t help but love toiling over an event that so clearly inspires joy.
One of the winter games’ yearly highlights is always the annual Monday night dance, said Mistress of Ceremonies Lisa Bird. This year was no different. “A thousand people in one place dancing and letting loose, it’s wonderful,” she said.
Bird added that her favorite part of the event, which began Sunday night and ended Tuesday, was seeing that “everyone was excited and happy.”
“The people that came in sixth were just as happy as with first,” she said. “That’s very different than in regular sporting events.”
Eight of head coach Frank Theriault’s 10-member L.C. Dill Center team from Skowhegan stood outside the Sugarloaf/USA base lodge after the games ended Tuesday, clad in green jackets and wearing matching hats. They all said they had a wonderful time at the games and were happy with their various medals and ribbons.
Diane White, who came in third in the 500-meter cross-country race, said her favorite part of the weekend was “going fast” through the snow.
Veteran competitor and gold-medal-winning Nordic skier Brian Stevens hugged his fiancee, Dani Gower, as she showed off her fifth- and sixth-place snowshoeing ribbons. This was her first year competing, Theriault said. A shy Gower would only nod and smile when asked about the games, but held out her hand, sparkling with an engagement ring, when Stevens mentioned their forthcoming marriage. Both are from Skowhegan.
Theriault said that all his competitors, from rookie to yearly gold-medal-winning veteran athletes, seem to gain confidence through competing. “It helps them conquer” some of the obstacles they face, he said. He added that many of them are told for years, “You can’t do this, or you can’t do that.”
“With effort, they see if they push themselves, they can do almost anything.”
The two eldest members of the Dill Team, Bill Farnham and Milford Scott, said they are both old hands at racing, and enjoy the social aspect of the games as well as the athletics.
So does veteran games volunteer and member of its board of directors Charlie Kilbride, who has been volunteering “forever,” in part because he loves meeting all the athletes.
“Socializing with the athletes and getting to know them on a first-name basis” is always his favorite part of the games, he said. But like Bird and Theriault, he said what keeps him coming back year after year is the happiness the event inspires in the athletes. “It’s worth more than words, seeing the look on their faces,” he said.
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