Officer goes many an extra mile for Special Olympics
A Pinellas Park police officer takes his passion for the Special Olympics across Europe in a torch run.
By JAN WESNER CHILDS
Published June 4, 2003
PINELLAS PARK - Police Officer Jim Rexroad isn't into running.
Yet he'll spend the next three weeks doing just that - through Europe.
Rexroad, the crime prevention officer for Pinellas Park, is the Florida representative to the Special Olympics Torch Run Final Leg, in which 100 police officers from around the world will take turns carrying the Special Olympics Torch of Hope until they reach the site of this year's world summer games in Dublin, Ireland.
The torch will be lighted June 4 in Athens, Greece, where the modern Olympic Games originated and where the 2004 Games will be held.
"Isn't that amazing, that much history, and some flunky from Florida gets to go out and be a part of this?" Rexroad said last week.
He left Sunday for Athens. From there, Rexroad will travel to Helsinki, Finland, where he and a team of officers will start their part of the run on Thursday. Each runner will carry the torch up to 7 miles, twice a day. Two other teams will carry torches simultaneously across different parts of Europe.
The teams will meet up in Northern Ireland on June 13, and spend another eight days as a group carrying the flame across that country.
The run culminates June 21 with the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics 2003 World Summer Games.
Similar torch runs take place throughout the United States leading up to each year's state games. They are organized by law enforcement agencies and serve as fundraisers for Special Olympics.
Laurel Robison, spokesperson for the Florida torch run, said Rexroad was chosen to represent the state because of his outstanding fundraising efforts. He has coordinated several events for Special Olympics since he became involved with the organization four years ago.
Robison said Rexroad already has raised $42,000 this year through events that included a celebrity dinner and auction and a "scaffold sit," where local celebrities took turns sitting on a three-story scaffolding outside the Wal-Mart on U.S. 19.
The money goes toward paying the estimated $200 it costs per year for an athlete to participate in Special Olympics, and helps the state organization ensure that participants have no out-of-pocket costs.
Hillsborough County sheriff's Maj. Gene Stokes, head of the Florida torch run, nominated Rexroad to go to Europe.
"The guy is just tireless in his work for Special Olympics," he said. "You can just tell his heart is in it."
Rexroad, a 16-year veteran of the Pinellas Park Police Department, started working with Special Olympics when he became his department's crime prevention officer.
"When I began, it was my job," he said. "When I met the Special Olympics athletes, it became a passion.
"It's one of those things that's very difficult to describe, but if you would go to one Special Olympics game, you would understand."
Rexroad is inspired by the obstacles the athletes overcome and has tried to take more risks in his own life, including becoming more involved in the community. He volunteers with the United Way and organized the Florida part of a world-record scuba dive for a national dive club.
Rexroad, 39, has been to Europe before. He spent time in Germany as a child in a military family and later as a Marine guarding the U.S. Embassy there. But he's never been to other countries the runners will go through: Finland, Latvia, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain and Ireland.
He will spend more than three weeks away from his wife, Wendy, a firefighter, and their 3-year-old daughter, Clarice.
