Back in 1981, former Wichita Police Chief Richard LaMunyon (currently, Maize city administrator) along with five other WPD officers felt a need to help the Kansas Special Olympics. “What can we do?” LaMunyon remembers his officers asking. “I said, ‘We’ll send money.'” So, they ran a torch 5.8 miles from Wichita City Hall to South High School. Creating the first-ever Special Olympic’s Law Enforcement Torch Run. “You never know what’s going to happen with an idea,” he said. With some persuasion by Chief LaMunyon, the Law Enforcement Torch Run spread like wildfire. “We started with one state, the state of Kansas. We then went to like six states. Then we went to like 12 states, and then all of a sudden, every state got involved,” he said. “Canada was the first outside of the United States to get involved; all their provinces came on board. And then all of a sudden, we’re in Europe. We’re in Japan. We’re in China. We’re everywhere that you can think.”
Source: KSN-TV
