howard.wimmer@roanoke.com 981-3222

More than 100 golfers gathered at Smith Mountain Lake last Saturday to enjoy an afternoon of good-natured competition with some of their friends.

They also helped assure that dozens of special-needs children from around the area will again have the opportunity to do the same next spring.

Mariner's Landing Country Club hosted the fifth annual Challenger Little League Benefit Golf Tournament, the league's signature fund-raising event. The tournament raised a little more than $4,000 last year, and volunteers hoped to at least equal that amount this year.

Money from the tournament and other benefits goes toward the District12 Challenger program's $12,000 annual budget.

In addition to the golf tournament, coaches, volunteers, players and their families hold car washes, silent auctions and pizza sales and go door-to-door selling doughnuts. Local businesses and organizations have also been generous with their support.

"People are willing to pitch in and do what they have to do," said Cave Spring Optimist coach Sid Witt Jr. "If we feel like we are running short on money, we'll park our butts up at Advance Auto Parts and wash a bunch of cars."

Organizers are planning a project that could make Witt and Co. a fixture at Advance Auto Parts in the coming months.

District12 administrator Jim McFadyen and assistant Kathy Caldwell have begun discussions with recreation officials from Salem, Roanoke and Roanoke County about securing land to build a handicap-accessible field. Caldwell and Witt led a group that toured the Frank Beckham Complex, a prototype field in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The Myrtle Beach ballpark features a rubberized surface in the infield, artificial turf and bases that are built into the ground. The dugouts, restrooms and grandstands are built to accommodate wheelchairs, and the ballpark has a lighted field.

Caldwell estimates the cost of the facility to be around $250,000, which would be paid by private donations. The field would be the first handicap-accessible Little League park in Virginia.

Challenger league games have been played at the Moyer Sports Complex in Salem and at Roanoke County fields. None have dugouts wide enough for wheelchairs.