On Saturday the third annual golf tournament to benefit local Area 7 Special Olympics will be at Duncan Park Golf Course.

This tournament will be a four-man scramble with a shotgun start beginning at 8:30 a.m. Cost is $75 per player, $300 per team and will include green fees, cart, refreshments, door prizes and a jambalaya lunch to be provided by Concordia Parish Sheriff Randy Maxwell. Sheriff Ronny Brown and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office will furnish white beans and cornbread. Players will also have a chance to win a 2007 Chevrolet Avalanche LT with a hole in one on hole No. 13 and other hole in one prizes on selected par 3 holes.

Hole sponsorship is $100 and sponsors will have a sign posted on the course during the tournament. With your help this event will benefit our local Special Olympics athletes by allowing them to attend different sporting events throughout the year. This tournament is being organized by parents, volunteers, teachers and supporters of our Special Olympics athletes. This year we will have a special addition to our tournament by having a silent auction for special items that have been donated. This will be a very exciting and fun-filled tournament with lots of prizes, good food and refreshments all to benefit a very worthy cause.

This will be our only fundraiser and we need as much community support as possible to allow these special athletes the opportunity to compete in all the Special Olympics events. Proceeds from this tournament will be used for all our events including a trip to the Regional Winter Games in Boone, N.C., every February and on May 18 we will travel to the summer games in Biloxi at Keesler Air Force Base. Also the week of Saturday- May 19 has been designated as “Special Olympics Week” in Natchez by a proclamation given to us by Mayor Phillip West and the board of alderman.

If you would like to sponsor a hole, make a donation or donate door prizes, you can call Ricky Warren 601-442-4301 or 601-597-4724 or make your donations to Mississippi Special Olympics Area 7 and mail to: me at, 108 Tanglewood Road, Natchez, MS 39120.

On behalf of our special athletes, their coaches, teachers, parents and families, I would like to thank the entire community for all your support and a special thank you to our corporate sponsors who help make this event possible: Taco Bell and Paradise Foods of Natchez, Great River Chevrolet Cadillac GMC, Double S Enterprises Inc., and Southern Signs and all the many businesses who continue to support this event with their generosity. May God bless you, the people of our great community, for your generous support and kindness.

Ricky Warren is a Special Olympics volunteer and the parent of a participant.