Jessica Askins plays hard. When asked what she likes to do at Indian Hills Elementary School, where she has just finished the fourth grade, she doesn’t hesitate: “swing and slide,” she says. The 10-year-old has plenty of opportunities to stay active outside of recess, too. For the past three years she has batted and run bases for the Rockies, a baseball team with the Miracle League program. Plus, she practices hippotherapy and horse riding through the therapeutic riding center Hearts & Hooves in Sherwood.

Jessica’s mother, Leigh Anna Askins, says that her daughter’s diagnosis of Down Syndrome never made their family question whether Jessica would be involved in extracurricular activities. Her father, Jonathan Askins, coaches Jessica’s big brother J.J. in the USSSA 14-year-old Wildcats baseball team, and “Coach” Jessica often leads the team in pep talks before big games. And with an extended family of 13 active cousins, her mother says it was natural to sign her up for as many activities as possible. “It’s important for her to feel like she’s doing the same things that her brother and her cousins are doing because that’s our life—going to ball games and pageants, and going to watch cheer and dance. For her to get to do it, she feels like she’s just like them, and that’s what everybody wants—to be like everybody else,” Leigh Anna explains.

Special Olympics for Outstanding Athletes

Not surprisingly, Jessica isn’t one to shy away from a new challenge; she’s a funny girl who is popular with her classmates, has appeared on the Miss Arkansas stage alongside her cousins who compete in pageants, and is even a fierce competitor in Arkansas’ Special Olympics. Jessica’s family takes advantage of the Special Olympics’ completely free, year-round programs; she has participated in basketball clinics and gymnastic workshops, and competed for the third time in Track & Field events at the Summer Games in May. In fact, you may have seen her freckled face and big grin on a Special Olympics billboard around central Arkansas recently. Leigh Anna says it was an exciting moment when Jessica first saw her larger-than-life self floating high above Interstate-30. “That’s me!” she exclaimed, squealing with excitement.

Special Olympics Executive Director Bobby Doyle agrees with the Askins family on the importance of getting children with special needs and their families involved. “We find it beneficial to reach out to parents of younger athletes to get the family involved,” says Doyle, which is one of the reasons why the nonprofit started a new program designed for children ages 4 to 7. Regular Special Olympics activities are limited to athletes ages 8 and up, but “the Young Athletes programs are generally offered on the local level in such competition as Basketball Individual Skills, Aquatics, Bowling and Athletics.”

Older athletes take part in annual Summer and Winter Games, competitions and sports like flag football, ice speed skating, cycling and more, and can even attend week-long residential summer camps. At the camps, they train in six sports; “the experience athletes receive during the week is immense,” says Doyle. “Words truly cannot define the independence, socialization and training that occur.”

Leigh Anna sees the benefits of these programs first-hand every weekend at the baseball field and every time Jessica attends a Special Olympics event: “With Special Olympics, she gets so excited when she runs past the finish line and gets her medal,” she says. “And she’s so proud when she accomplishes things like running the bases in Miracle League. Everybody hits and everybody scores, but when she crosses the home plate, she gets so excited that it doesn’t matter if it’s the first time or the hundredth time.”

The Little Princess

In addition to her athletic endeavors, Jessica Askins loves to participate in pageants with her cousins 23-year-old Abby and 15-year-old Laura Leigh Turner. She is the inspiration for their volunteer-focused lives and will light up the pageant stage as a “princess” when the sisters compete in the Miss Arkansas and Miss Arkansas Outstanding Teen contests this year.

“Each contestant picks a girl to be their princess—she doesn’t have to win a title,” Jessica’s mother, Leigh Anna, explains. “The pageant has a program for these girls while the big girls are practicing. It’s usually all typical kids, but Abby and Laura Leigh picked Jessica, and she’s done it for several years. She practices a dance and performs with the other princesses. She’s done a good job keeping up with the other girls!”

The Turner sisters have also been inspired to base their pageant platforms and volunteer work on their experiences with Jessica. Abby is organizing central Arkansas’ first Buddy Walk this month and working to create a third Miracle League Field in Arkansas in Texarkana.  “Over the years, I have realized how amazing these children are. They have such a zest for life,” says Abby.

This year, Laura Leigh raised more than $1,000 at North Little Rock High School for Special Olympics and plunged into the ice cold water for the Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge. “When I found out my high school didn’t have a Special Olympics team, I had to fix that immediately!” she says. “I organized and now coach our Special Olympics team. I’m thankful that Jessica opened up my eyes to special needs youth, because if I want to make a difference in any way, I want to make the people I come in contact with feel special. I’m blessed to have these opportunities and they have forever changed my life. Jessica is, and will always be, a princess to me.”

“I’m so proud of my nieces,” Leigh Anna says. “I am so proud of them for not just helping with Jessica, but for getting out into their community and helping others.”

Get Involved: Special Olympics

Special Olympics offers 19 Olympic sports statewide. The program is open to all athletes with an intellectual disability, and there is no cost to participate. Interested families should visit SpecialOlympicsArkansas.org, call 771-0222, or speak with your child’s school or agency about local, volunteer-led opportunities.