WESTVILLE | Twenty members of the Emergency Response Teams for the Westville Correctional Facility won the FedEx Plane Pull Challenge held recently at Indianapolis International Airport. Their efforts helped to raise funds for the Special Olympics of Indiana. The team, which beat more than 50 other teams in the annual competition, also won the event last year when it competed for the first time. The team included staff from both the correctional facility and the Camp Summit Juvenile Correctional Facility in LaPorte.

The challenge pits teams of up to 20 people in a tug-of-war competition against a FedEx Boeing 727 jet weighing more than 147,000 pounds. The team had to pull the jet a distance of 12 feet in the least amount of time. As last year's defending champions, Westville Correctional Facility competed in the All-Star Division, finishing first among all other competitors with a completed pull in only 5.330 seconds. A team from New Castle Correctional Facility placed second in the Public Safety Division with a pull of 5.700 seconds, just behind another first-time team from the Hammond Police Department with a time of 5.574 seconds. The Department of Correction's Plainfield Correctional Complex also competed.

To participate, each team had to raise at least $1,000 in pledges. The grand total of pledges collected so far for the event exceeds $97,000. The money will benefit more than 12,000 Special Olympics athletes in Indiana.

"While we were delighted to have our facility team successfully defend their title," said Westville Superintendent William K. Wilson, "the real winners are the disabled youth of Indiana who will have the opportunity to show off their talents in their own Special Olympics."

"The involvement of multiple teams from Indiana's correctional facilities in this competition reflects how our staff are dedicated to supporting and protecting their own communities," according to Department of Correction Commissioner Ed Buss. "We can all be proud of all the Hoosier citizens who competed, volunteered and contributed to help others in need."

-- For The Times