Trooper makes tasty delivery to Special Olympians
By Theodore Geise, Guest Columnist

I had the pleasure of volunteering with the Douglas County (Oregon) Special Olympics bowling event recently. On November 14, I accompanied these intrepid athletes to Medford for the Regional Championship, and let me say that the enthusiasm and positive energy was amazing. Several Douglas County Special Olympians brought home gold, silver, and bronze medals, and even the ones who did not were still hailed greatly for their accomplishments.

There were 26 of us on the bus ride home back to Roseburg. The bus driver found it unsettling that smoke was belching from the exhaust pipe as we made our way onto the freeway back home. We thought nothing of it until the bus began to lose power in Grants Pass. The bus gradually slowed until it reached a crawl, before dying on the side of the freeway on the top of a hill on the 56th mile.

Much to the surprise of the volunteers and coaches, none of the Special Olympians (or volunteers or coaches for that matter) panicked. We all stayed cool as cucumbers as phone calls were made in an attempt to contact the bus dispatch to send rescue.

After a time, rescue was contacted and another bus was on its way from Roseburg to take us all home. In the meantime, an Oregon state trooper named Josh Neville out of Grants Pass checked in on us to find out how we were getting on. He offered to provide any assistance he could, but I don't think he would have ever bargained on the type of assistance we would have requested of him.

This started as a joke, but the other volunteers and I wondered aloud if it was possible to have pizza delivered to a broken-down bus on the side of the freeway. It was still over an hour before help would arrive, and we were all growing hungry.

One of the volunteers, Patrick, decided to test the local pizza chains by seeing if they would deliver us some warm dinner while we were out in the cold. He called two well-known pizza chains, spoke with the managers, and was dismayed to find that neither pizza company would make a special exception to deliver four cheese pizzas to an inoperable bus filled with Special Olympians. Patrick, however, was determined to get us all a hot meal and contacted Tpr. Neville.

Much to everyone's surprise, the troopers agreed to pick up a pizza order and deliver it to us post-haste. Within the time it would have taken the local pizza chains to deliver the piping-hot pies to us directly, another state trooper, Sgt. Mark Byrd, delivered us warm, cheesy deliciousness. When we attempted to pay them back for the meal, they refused. So not only did the state police deliver us pizza, but they paid for it too!

Shortly after the pizza was consumed, the replacement bus arrived and we were safely on our way in a warm bus with our tummies full of warm pizza.

When the police showed up with our dinner, the hoots and cheers from the group of Special Olympians was enough to warm the cockles of anyone's heart, and this story goes to show that there are astounding people in this world. Even something as small as going out of one's way to help people can make a world of difference.

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