South High hosted its 29th annual Special Olympics on March 1. 

Special Olympics is an event that was created in 1968 as a way to oppose the discrimination of students with disabilities.  

South holds a basketball tournament every year for the event. This year was sophomore class secretary Jenny Nelson’s first year in charge of the event. While there was a change in leadership, the event stayed the same for the most part. Nelson spoke on the changes she experienced.

“I think it’s basically the same. I mean it’s the same setup and it was still a basketball tournament and we still did kind of the same things but there are procedures that I did a little bit differently than we’re done in the past,” she said. 

One procedure that stayed the same was the implementation of a Victory Village. The Victory Village is a collection of booths run by student organizations such as ASAP and DECA. The booths each had different activities for the student-athletes to participate in. One booth that was featured was ASAP’s CD-burning booth. Athletes could choose from a list of songs to have a custom CD made for them. They could even customize the CD case. Senior ASAP secretary DJ Lee helped run this booth, and said that he thinks it was an incredible addition to the event. 

“I feel like the CD burning idea was amazing because music is like a language that everybody can understand and it showed. Everyone that came to the booth really loved it and it created so many cool conversations,” he said.

Every year, student-athletes from schools around St. Louis come to South to participate. This year 15 schools with over 100 athletes came together to participate in the event. In addition to the large number of student-athletes, over 200 South High students volunteered their time to buddy up with the student-athletes. 

“The event helped me realize how hard it is to be a special education teacher along with how to empathize with people who may not be able to do the same things as me,” said sophomore Etta Brazel. This was her second year participating in the event. 

The Special Olympics is a great way to get involved at school and learn about students with disabilities. 

“I think it’s great for the student-athletes and it’s also great for our students to work with students that may have some challenges and might open their eyes a little bit to the challenges at other kids and young adults go through every single day and I think it helps build some empathy and I think it’s just a good outreach program,” said Nelson.