UMMC PD helps carry the torch for Special Olympics

Published on Monday, May 15, 2023

By: Danny Barrett Jr., dlbarrett@umc.edu

Photos By: Joe Ellis/ UMMC Communications

Special Olympians guided down campus streets in this year’s Law Enforcement Torch Run at UMMC  focused on the finish line and not their health challenges.

But not even some midday sprinkles from the sky could slow their little three-wheeled mustangs down.

“I like to go super-fast,” said Samantha Jo Hardy, 10, of Gulfport, who added a medal to the more than 30 she’s collected from similar events in Mississippi and Louisiana– with some up to 16 miles long.

In central Mississippi, the Law Enforcement Torch Run for Special Olympics took place in three parts this past Wednesday. UMMC Police and Public Safety and Capitol Police coordinated respective routes on campus and south of campus. Similar runs were held and organized by police and sheriff’s departments in Ridgeland, Pearl, Vicksburg and Clinton. Statewide, the final rounds of races end in Biloxi, whose police department was on hand to support the UMMC run.

Elizabeth Guy, 12, of Brandon, wanted to ride shotgun with her newfound friend they call Sami-Jo on the torch run circuit. She is nonverbal and struggles to communicate her wishes – except on race day, her mother, Rachel Guy said.

“She goes at breakneck speed for everybody in the race,” said Guy, who works as a process engineer at UMMC. “She’s my buddy.”

The event began in 1981 in Wichita, Kan. and grew to be the largest public awareness vehicle and fundraiser for Special Olympics. Each year, more than 100,000 law enforcement officers participate by carrying the “Flame of Hope,” which symbolizes courage and celebrates diversity while uniting communities worldwide.

UMMC’s leg of the run this year began at the Mississippi Center for Emergency Services. Racers in specially-designed wheelchairs donated by the Ainsley’s Angels organization snaked their way along Central University Drive and ended the race where they began. Each year, the event includes participating groups from all regions in the state and support from partnering law enforcement agencies, said UMMC Detective Beth Victoriano, coordinator of this year’s race.

"The Torch Run is the chance for law enforcement to participate in carrying the Flame of Hope for the start of the Special Olympics,” Victoriano said. “Special Olympics should be about inclusion for everyone and we are super-excited to have them all join us.”

Building a social life outside the walls of home is perhaps the biggest takeaway from running the ceremonial, non-competitive races for its youngest hot-rodders and their loved ones.

“Activities like this contribute to a better quality of life for Elizabeth and others you might see with her diagnosis,” Rachel said. Elizabeth was diagnosed as an infant with pachygyria and, later, Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome, both degenerative neurological conditions. Still, it hasn’t stopped her from playing special needs soccer and Miracle League baseball when she can, mainly around appointments at the Children’s of Mississippi Complex Care Clinic.

“We’ve traveled together just to run a 5K and come back,” Rachel said. “Her condition holds us back a little bit, but it doesn’t define us.”

Sami-Jo, who was diagnosed with spina bifida at birth, has certainly added to list of friends from already being a grizzled veteran of the special-needs athletic circuit, said Lee Burnett, her grandmother and legal guardian. The spunky preteen – a “spitfire,” according to grandma – visits the children’s dentistry clinic in Jackson and gets checkups without Burnett having to travel too far, at Children’s of Mississippi – Acadian Court Pediatric Clinic.

“Life before was like, ‘Ok, we have this special-needs child, so just deal with her,’” Burnett said. “People we don’t even know will come up and tell us they saw Sami-Jo on the news – the little girl who gets up out of her chair and uses her walker to walk across the finish line.”

And the encouragement from organizers and partnering agencies is infectious in the best way possible for the kids.

“It takes people like Beth coming up and saying, ‘Hey, we’re doing this – let’s go!’,” Rachel said. “It takes that for us to get out sometimes, because we get so bogged down in everyday life.”