Ninth grade student, Shawn Andrews, will compete at the Special Olympics Invitational at Washington & Jefferson College beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday, March 16th!

Giving the healthy and fun of organized sports to people with such a wide range of developmental challenges is the absolute goal of Special Olympics. It all started as a summer camp located in Eunice Kennedy Shriver’s back yard back in 1962! Shriver believed that “people with intellectual disabilities were far more capable in sports and physical activities than many experts thought”. The very first International Games were held back in 1968 and now today more than 172 countries across the globe are involved! Pennsylvania hosted their first event in 1970 and now there is nearly 20,000 athletes that compete annually at both local, sectional, and even state competitions! Jefferson-Morgan is proud to have student, Shawn Andrews, be apart of that group!

It will be a day of amateur athletes competing in different competitions such as basketball and swimming. After Saturday’s competition at W&J, teams will compete at Westminster College on April 6th and Carnegie Mellon University on April 27th to see if they qualify for the Summer Games. The Summer Games will be held at Penn State University from June 6th trough June 8th.

Andrews has been working hard during practices that are held at Waynesburg University almost every day after school. Riana Journic, Shawns mother, said, “We’ve gone to state for four years now, ever since Shawn was 10.” “He really loves basketball and this year he’ll be playing five-on-five instead of three-on-three because now we have enough players to play at that level.”

We wish Shawn a good luck!