Countywide : Special Olympics’ Torch Run Today

The California Peace Officers Assn. Torch Run will pass through Ventura County today on its way to Los Angeles for the opening of the California Special Olympics Summer Games.

More than 100 runners will carry the torch through Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo and down the Pacific Coast Highway to Leo Carrillo State Park in Los Angeles County. From there, runners will carry it Friday into Drake Stadium at UCLA, where the summer games will be held.

A brief ceremony will be held at 8 a.m. at Ventura City Hall as the run through Ventura County begins. Simultaneously, a ceremony will be held at the Camarillo Development Center.

In Oxnard, the torch will be carried 2 1/2 miles by Oxnard Police Officer Ron Zavala, who will be pushing his daughter, Amber, a Special Olympics athlete, in her wheelchair.

And for the last leg of the 45-mile stretch, the torch will be carried by Ventura County Deputy Sheriff Bruce Watlington and his brother, Jeff, a Special Olympics athlete.

The runners join 45,000 law enforcement officers nationwide who are raising money through pledges to finance year-round training for the Special Olympics athletes.

In conjunction with the torch run through the state, the peace officers association is selling T-shirts designed by local caricaturist Chris Martinez imprinted, “Help Run a Cop Out of Town.”