KELSO — Competition, self-improvement, goal-setting and team-building are all congruent with the construction of oneself. Patience, encouragement, faith and guidance are the tools that shape the process.

The success of such development is readily visible in the results of North Kitsap’s Special Olympic’s swimmers recent medal count from the Southwest Washington Regional swims.

The 12-person swim team traveled to Kelso April 29 with the enthusiasm of a candidate and returned to NK with the pride of a president. Of the 12 NK swimmers, 11 came back with at least one gold medal, Special Olympics swim instructor volunteer Judy Chase said, adding that across the board, high marks and achievements were met.

“Most all of these kids beat their (personal best) times,” Chase said, reviewing the results sheet, noting a five-second drop in Tyler Kennedy’s 100M freestyle time.

Kennedy and the NK relay teams were the only North participants that didn’t receive a gold medal. However, Kennedy’s best 100M freestyle time of 2:08.16 earned a silver while the NK 25M and 50M relays each swam to bronze times.

Swimmers who collected at least one gold medal will be moving on to the State Games June 4 but the final decision has yet to be made as to whether silver medalists will be allowed into the state swims, Chase said.

The atmosphere of NK Special Olympics Aquatics practice alone is infectious with teammates cheering on teammates for the sake of being teammates. The regional swims’ environment was electric with teams competing not only against rivals and times but against barriers as well.

“There’s something about when they get in the water, it just lifts all of those restrictions from them,” NK Special Olympics coach Darla Smith said, noting Margaret Nelson who learned the art of swimming just three weeks before the regional swims.

Fostered through the caring environment of her teammates and coaches, Nelson was able to compete with Christian Castillo, Kennedy and James Shaffer as the NK 25M relay team, and helped turn in an overall time of 2:23.41.

“I won a gold medal and a ribbon, but I was just glad to be a part of the team,” Castillo said.

That attitude is the underlying theme to the Special Olympics that make them as impressive and constructive as they are, Smith said.

She added that after a few shifts in life she has finally found that her passion lies in the pool with the kids.

As coach, she tries to guide the swimmers to each of their own individual achievements, Smith said. When those goals are met, the reward is pride.