Diane House, a Zeeland native and Ada resident who taught physical education in the Grand Rapids Public Schools for 39 years, founded the local Special Olympics program now known as Area 11 and has remained involved for more than 50 years.
The Warren Reynolds Lifetime Achievement Award winner was assigned to work with students then classified as trainable mentally impaired in 1969. House, the parent of a student and another teacher looked into the Special Olympics program. House contacted Eunice Kennedy Shriver and traveled to Washington D.C. to learn about replicating the program in Grand Rapids.
She started with track and field competition and the program evolved to year-round multiple programs in several sports and also includes post-high school athletes. Area 11 now serves more than 1,300 individuals in Kent and Barry counties and athletes from the area have won at regional and national levels.
House has been a volunteer, coach, athletic director, equipment manager, fundraiser, CEO, director of transportation, public relations coordinator, recruiter, board member, supervisor of officials and continues to mentor and serve as an inspiration to those involved at Area 11. Her husband Dennis, who passed away in 2021, was a constant support system and she would call on family members to help fundraise.
“It wasn’t a job because I was a volunteer and working with Special Olympics just meant so much to me – it was something I believe I was called to do,” she said. “The reward I guess was the smiling faces and seeing what it meant to our athletes to have a chance to compete and be with each other doing something meaningful to them.”