Torch Run route adds Wellsville

The annual Kansas Law Enforcement Torch Run will take a longer route through Franklin County this year.

For the first time, the torch will be carried by Franklin County officers through Wellsville on its way to the annual Special Olympics Summer Games at Wichita.

“We wanted to let the citizens of Wellsville participate,” Wellsville Police Chief Steve Gillespie said.

“We’re glad they wanted to be included,” Ottawa Police Department Lt. Adam Weingartner, who has participated in the Torch Run the past 11 years, said.

The Torch Run, which began today at Liberal, will involve more than 650 officers who will carry the “Flame of Hope” throughout 28 counties in Kansas. The torch is scheduled to arrive Friday in Wichita.

Gillespie has participated in the Torch Run when it was carried through Ottawa, as well as, when he previously worked at Gardner and Olathe.

The important thing isn’t about the torch being carried through Wellsville, Gillespie said, but what the torch stands for.

“It’s making the community aware of the Special Olympics,” he said.

The Wellsville Torch Run will begin about 1 p.m. Tuesday at Third and Main streets and travel south down Main Street to 10th Street. The torch will be carried east a half a block to Saddle Club Park, where Bill Lytle, Wellsville mayor, will speak during a brief ceremony.

The torch will begin its trek in Ottawa at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Dairy Queen, 212 N. Main St. Law enforcement officers and Special Olympics Kansas athletes will run the torch through downtown on Main Street and then head west on 17th Street to Eisenhower Avenue.

Officers will continue the torch run south on Eisenhower Avenue to Old Highway 50 and arrive in Williamsburg at about noon. The run will continue to the Subway restaurant at BETO Junction, where they will meet runners from Topeka and Shawnee County at about 2 p.m. The torch then will be passed to Coffey County officers.

Weingartner said the Law Enforcement Torch Run has special significance because it began in Wichita in 1981 with six runners and has grown to an international program involving thousands of law enforcement personnel raising millions of dollars annually to benefit Special Olympics programs in the U.S. and abroad.

“It is an event I look forward to each year,” he said.

To donate to the Special Olympics or for more information on the Law Enforcement Torch Run, go to www.kansastorchrun.org