• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Human Interest / Special Olympics National Games to include historic airlift

Special Olympics National Games to include historic airlift

July 8, 2005 By admin

The first ever National Special Olympic U.S. Games are one year away — but hosts of the Iowa event say they already know it will set one record. Organizers of the games that’ll be in Ames in July of 2006 say they plan to bring the special athletes to Iowa from all around the U.S. aboard donated corporate jets. Jack Pelton, the C-E-O of jet manufacturer Cessna is organizing the effort that he says will include some 400 Cessna Citation jets. Pelton says they’ll bring in and take home athletes from 35 states — making it the largest civilian peacetime airlift in the world. He says each flight will take between one-and-a-half to three hours each way. Each flight will take between four to seven athletes and he says in the two days those jets will be landing or taking off every 60 to 90 seconds over 16 straight hours. National Special Olympics President Bruce Pasternack says the airlift is another donation that makes the Special Olympics a quality program. He says, “Our athletes have a lot of challenges in life, and part of what we do is try to relieve all of those pressures.” He says they rely on the generosity of companies and individual donors to make the movement come alive and stay alive. Pasternack says the airlift is going to be as important to many of the intellectually disabled athletes as the competition itself. He says when the get off the airplanes they will be grinning from ear-to-ear, as for many of them it will be their first time on an airplane. The National Special Olympic U.S. Games run July 1st through the eighth next year on the Iowa State University campus in Ames.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Human Interest, Sports

Featured Stories

Exhibit features lesser known works of Grant Wood

Testing finds 21 new CWD cases in deer

It may become a crime in Iowa to use fake urine in workplace drug tests

February trending 18 degrees below average temperature

Iowa House Education Committee votes to end tenure at UI, ISU, UNI

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa’s Jack Nunge lost for the season

Key stretch begins for #9 Iowa

Drake’s Roman Penn lost for the season

Drake’s DeVries named to Naismith watch list

State wrestling opens with limited attendance

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC