2009 Athlete Highlights

Josh Swoverland - Track Star

Josh is an incredibly gifted athlete who has leveraged his relationship with RHISP to reach the highest levels of his sport. During the last year, Josh traveled to Switzerland for the IWAS Junior World Championships for Track, qualifying in the finals for every one of his competitive events and medaling in four races.

Following a break-through year of successes, Josh was then named the Sports N' Spokes magazine 2009 Junior Athlete of the Year!

RHISP Track and Field

This year, RHI Sports Youth Track & Field Team sent five athletes: Josh Swoverland, Casey Followay, Timmy Dowell, Anika Lunde, and Alexis Allen, to the 2009 National Junior Disability Championships (NJDC) in St. Louis, MO. The NJDC's are the national championships for the summer sports of archery, field events, swimming, table tennis, track, and weightlifting and all five RHI Sports athletes performed at their highest levels and came away with an armload of medals and a great experience.

Jon Mize - Para-Archery

RHISP’s Jon Mize Took the Para-Archery world by storm, with a fourth place finish at the World Championships out of 69 archers! Jon was pretty new to the game and competed against seasoned archers who had competed in the Beijing Paralympics. But because of his obvious natural talent, Jon was named to the Para-Archery World Championship team.

Cat Bouwkamp - Wheelchair Fencing

Thirteen-year-old Cat is another amazing athlete who chose her sport and then conquered it with the support of RHI Sports Program. In October she took off for Warsaw, Poland and came home with no less than the Bronze Medal at the International Wheelchair & Amputee Sports Federation's 2009 Wheelchair Fencing World Cup in the Women's Sabre competition. Cat, pictured below in the black  jacket, followed up that great win by being voted the United States Olympic committee’s October “Female Athlete of the Month."

Dan Reed – Disabled Water Ski

Dan Reed racked up enough points for jumping in the Men’s MP-3 (multi-plegic) division to qualify for a spot on the 2009 US Disabled Water Ski Team which had won the gold in 2007 and wanted it back in 2009. Dan delivered.

He was the first skier ever selected for the team from Indiana and he finished fifth in Slalom and sixth in Tricks in his division, helping the US to win back the Gold Medal at the 2009 Disabled Water Ski World Championships in Vichy, France!  Since then, Dan has gone on to five National Championships, earning two Silver Medals and one Bronze, in addition to the Royce Andes Award, given to a promising National's skier among other awards.

Kyle Kilworth - Wheelchair Basketball

Kyle Killworth had a great 2009-2010 wheelchair basketball season with three All-Tournament team awards and 1 tournament MVP award, not to mention getting a full ride to the University of Alabama to play wheelchair basketball.  Killworth, who has a grade point average of 3.91, wants to major in a pre-med or medical research field.  "Alabama had a lot of the majors I was interested in so it allowed me a leniency on what I wanted to do and if I changed majors, it wasn't going to be difficult," said Killworth, who had his right leg amputated as a baby.

These are just a few snap-shots of the past year at RHISP. Help us reload the film for a great 2010-2011!