Goofy Olympics ends the school year

It’s the last week of school and it’s once again time for the Goofy Olympics. This goofy time signifies the end of the school year at Rosemary Clarke Middle School for the sixth graders.

Of course, the sixth graders are not the only ones having fun. The seventh graders get to go to Treasures and the eighth graders get to have a fun picnic at Simkins Park.

The event was Tuesday morning and has been an annual tradition for the past four years, which takes place during the last week of school.

The Goofy Olympics is a fun activity reward for the entire sixth grade with two stipulations, the student can’t have any suspensions and no “Fs” or failing grades. It combines a little bit of athleticism mixed with some mental acuity.

These olympics are the brainchild of sixth grade English Teacher Robin Gourley. She started doing the Olympics for the Death Valley School District 18 years ago as an end of the year activity for kindergarten.

“When my youngest son was in kinder, I remember we needed something to do on the last day of school,” Gourley said.

She said now it has grown into an activity where close to 200 students participate.

“The activities involve teams and are mostly relay races,” Gourley explained. “One of them has the kids counting by threes up to 50 or singing the first verse of their favorite song, hence the title “Goofy Olympics.”

The games all have goofy names like “Stinky Pod race,” “Arachnid Rumble” or the “Chinese Fire Drill.”

The goofiest event is the “Stinky Pod race.” In this activity, each kid must hold their nose, hold their ankle and run to a line about 20 feet away and back.

“It may be goofy, but it has become a tradition here and I have students coming back to me and telling me how much fun it was,” she said.

Gourley takes particular care in preparing for this event by handmaking 600 medals to hand out to each winner.

“I thought of this goofy thing because at the time I created it was an Olympic year,” she said.

In addition to medals, the kids also create their own team name and flag.

“We will actually have an opening ceremony where the kids parade around the football field with their flags to the Olympic theme song,” Gourley said.

The whole event only takes two hours, but it’s memories that a kid will file away for a lifetime.