By Michelle Key
Editor

The Lee County Special Olympics team, along with other athletes from Alabama, competed in the National Special Olympic Games in Seattle, Washington, last week. Twenty athletes and their coaches travelled to Seattle for the games and they returned home with several medals and ribbons collectively.
Team Alabama (pictured left) – a unified volleyball team – defeated Team Georgia in overtime to bring home the bronze medal.
Ladazah Finley Brittnay Stewart and Sherrell Caldwell of the mini-javelin team swept the field, winning gold, silver and bronze.
Here is the full list of medal and ribbon recipients:
• Unified Volleyball Team: Bronze Medal
• Robert Crouch, Bowler:
Silver Medal for Traditional Team Play (his partners were Bryan Latham, Chris Williams and Garrett Wynn)
Crouch had the following to say about his experience at the games, “The University of Washington, City of Seattle, and the surrounding towns like, Kenmore and the many other suburbs that hosted the Special Olympic USA Games events. You definitely deserve a well-earned thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and thank you for the support and the hospitality and the great treatment you gave us.
“I’m proud that I have had the wonderful opportunity to go and represent both Lee County and Alabama in Seattle. It was a pleasure to see the other members of the Special Olympics family and that is what we are, we’re family,” Crouch added.
Bronze Medal for Doubles (his partner was Chris Williams)
5th Place Ribbon for Singles
• Porter Caldwell, Track:
4th Place Ribbon: High Performance 100M Run
5th Place Ribbon: Long Jump (His distance was 2.66M)
6th Place Ribbon: 200M Run
• Sherrell Caldwell, Track:
Bronze Medal: Mini Jav 300G
7th Place Ribbon: 100M Run
• LaDazah Finlay, Track:
Gold Medal: Mini Jav 300G (Her distance was 9.38M)
5th Place Ribbon: High Performance 100M Run
• Brittnay Stewart, Track:
Silver Medal: Mini Jav 300G
Silver Medal: 100M Run (Her time was 18:32)