Temperatures are dropping. And so you know what that means. Time to jump into Beaver Lake.
Now, that might sound like a crazy idea, but for the Arkansas Special Olympics, it’s anything but. Every year, they host polar plunges across the state to raise money to support athletes in the coming years and upcoming games. The plunge for our region takes place Feb. 14 at Beaver Lake. Ahead of the event, Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis reached out to Keeshia Geurian to preview the plunge.
Keeshia Geurian: It’s out at Prairie Creek Recreation Area in Rogers. We do registration at 10 a.m. where you come and sign up, collect your towels, maybe hand in any donations that you have gotten. As well as we do awards at 10:30 a.m.
So those awards are where people come in their best costumes as a group, as an individual. Or we also do most money raised as individual or group. And then this year we are doing something for the officers that come out and help, because they’re always a big, big help at our events. We’re doing something called a Polar Patrol trophy, and it’s the law enforcement that raises the most money for the event. They get to take a trophy home with them.
And then after awards have been done, then we go and we do the plunge at 11 a.m. And that’s the whole fun part of it is running into the cold water.
Jack Travis: Absolutely. And you do this every year for a good cause, though. It’s a big fundraiser. Could you talk about that element and some of the programs and initiatives that this supports?
Geurian: It’s for individuals with special needs, anyone has an ID. We do fundraising because the state of Arkansas is one of the last in the United States that does fundraising and raises money so that their athletes don’t have to pay to go on to these events. So they work really hard at practicing. And this is our way of making sure that that’s one less thing they have to worry about. We fundraise so that they don’t have to worry about how they’re going to get there.
So this plunge is one of the largest plunges in the state of Arkansas. Last year we raised around $54,000. Would love to raise $60,000 this year. It’s our goal. And again, it’s for Special Olympics athletes so they don’t have to worry about anything. Also, it’s a fun way to get people to come out and interact with our athletes. They get to see them in a different way. A lot of people come out a little nervous about how to act with them. They’re just like me and you. You have to come out. You get to hang out. A lot of times you leave laughing so hard because they’re so funny.
Travis: And were you at the 2025 Special Olympics?
Geurian: Yes.
Travis: Could you talk about that? Just give us a little bit of insight into this really cool event that all of this goes to support.
Geurian: So our athletes compete in area events to see if they place gold. Once they have placed gold, they move up to state events. And that’s where we have a big event. It’s called Summer Games in Searcy, Arkansas. And they get to come out and compete for track and field, bocce. There’s so many different things.
And it brings athletes from all over the state of Arkansas together who have worked hard, have practiced over and over, and now are getting to compete for something that they truly have worked so hard and have gotten gold. So now they’re trying to get gold at state. It is a massive amount of athletes in one area. It’s a lot of energy. It’s a lot of excitement. And it’s a lot of hard work being proven.
Travis: And then where can people go for more information about the plunge and fundraising efforts before the actual event?
Geurian: If you go to SpecialOlympicsArkansas.org, if you scroll to the bottom of the screen, there is a button that says Polar Plunge. You can click on that and it lists all the polar plunges happening in the state of Arkansas through the month of February. You just click on Beaver Lake, and it’ll take you where you can sign up a team or an individual.
That was Keeshia Geurian speaking with Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis about the 2026 Arkansas Special Olympics Polar Plunge at Beaver Lake. You can keep up with Special Olympics Arkansas on Facebook and Instagram.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
