Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome. It's time now for our community connection. Right here on K one, the one you trust in is being brought to by get Real Ministries, Tall Grass Motors and Arnold More in Knee Camp Funeral Home. We got the Splash Club in here. How are we doing their kids more? Oh my goodness, it's great to see you. A year. We have Chad Engelhart and we have Jen Williams in here with us. Splash Club a very familiar entity
in our community. How long you guys been around? Not you guys pretty in particular, we're are seventy fourth year of existence. Seventy four years.
Nineteen fifty they built the Adams Building and they wanted to improve employee family lives, so they put in a fitness center and they build a pool, and then the gentlemen in charge of fitness service is at that time Ken Treadway, believe it or not, a Cherokee Indian, decided he was going to start swimming, and he built a team there called the Splash Club, and then traveled around the world, introducing swimming to Russia and to Norway and all over
the place. Oh my goodness, takes pretty darn cool, isn't it. Yeah, he's actually in the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Now can you imagine that from a little town of Borrowsville. Well, I love that. Now we got all kinds of activities, it's just not boys and girls and young people doing laps, you know, until they can't, until they can't swim anymore. Till they are we give out no. Actually we start them around three, so as they become potty trained, we'll start doing life saving
lessons for them. Interesting fact, a child is eighty eight percent less likely to drown if they've been introduced to formal soil lessons. We feel very strongly about introducing those lessons to the community and helping our young youngsters be a little bit safer around all the water we have in Oklahoma. Well, I've seen these videos where they take these little lady biddies and they just seem to know what to do. But to get them at three, it's before they forget
right. We can't quite work with the youngest ones at that age. Water water is a little chilly for that good. But once they hit three, we're able to work with them and get them in and it seems to be working out really well. So most of our lessons are in that three, four, five, six, seven zone. We try and get them young and teach them, teach them all those skills they need to be safe. Now, what age are they when they're ready to get all the blocks and
look like the big kids go get get competitive. I think most of them think right around three. Yeah, we take them on the competitive team at six. So once they get to be that six year old that they they've gone through a lessons, they progress right through the lessons into the team, and then we've got a number of different training groups, so they just progress
up slowly. The neathing is that we share the pool. So my high cool seniors, the Griffin Craigs who are off to Missouri to swimming Division one SEC program, he's actually on the same pool deck as some of my brand new six year olds and they get to watch him and see him and interact
with him. So it's a pretty neat experience. You know what it is when you're a youngster and you see someone you've been hearing while you know this this this guy does all this stuff and he's kind of famous and everything. They really look up to that person and they really want to emulate the good things they do. And it's funny to watch some of those secrecies, the
little things that the older kids do. Coming out with a little six and seven year olds, they get behind the blocks and they kind of stretch the same way just their God, they just they just mimic the older kids, and it's fun to watch. It's got to be. But I also know that it costs a little bit of money to keep this thing going, doesn't it. It does. It's not a cheap endeavor. We do offer some scholarships, but we do travel. We try to limit some of the travel
we do just to help out with families. Genuinely mentioned some of our sponsorship available. Yeah, oh, yes, yes, because as a club, you know, we are a nonprofit, so we need sponsorships to help us maintain the pool, the equipment, assist with the scholarships for their kids. We have opportunities right now. We're right in the middle of our big sponsorship
from I think January one to February twenty ninth. It's kind of our drive to get sponsorships for the year, and it runs from March to March, and there's different level sponsorships, so we can go from our gold sponsorship, which I believe is five thousand all the way down to you can be a friends and family level from one to five hundred, and then there's several in
between benefits for a company. On each level. We have an amazing scoreboard that will you put the logo or company name, our family name there. We go for for meets, so they get a lot of they're seen, little bank for the yes and so that's going on right now. So swimmers should be out in aging with the companies. But if anybody's interested, we will give them some contact information. We'd be happy to hear from them.
Well, I think, how do we get a hold of you? Good question, Yeah, you call me nine one eight eight seven six to zero, five to two, or just go to splash club dot or dashoka dot com. That's our website and that's a great way to get ahold of us. Splash Club, dashokay dot com is a great way to get ahold of us. And I think we come out to the community and we'd love to get sponsorship dollars, but we'd also like to be a partner and when we
host several events. You and I were talking about that earlier in the lobby. According to Maria at visit Morsville in twenty twenty one twenty two, that winter, we did three point seven million dollars in community impact financially coming into town, come come to our big events. We actually host the Senior State Championships for Oklahoma swimming, which is a major event. Right now, we're on pace to do almost four million dollars in community impact this winter alone with
our events, so I do feel like we're a partnership. We brought in four hundred and fifty kids in December and they spent two nights in hotels. When we get to that senior championship, we're going to be here Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night. You've got all those restaurants, all those hotel rooms for three hundred plus families. We think we're a pretty good partner
for the community and pre restaurant tours out there. They might not need a whole bunch before they get in the pool, but by golly, after they get done, they work up an appetite. Yes, sir, they're ready to go, so you know, load up. But this is great, great community impact and to actually get some sort of association as to how much
is a great tool. It's a great thing. So folks, if you're thinking about being a sponsor, I just think a little bit about that right there, and that'll tell you everything you need to know about the Splash Club and getting involved with it. It's a very unique situation and that the club has control over the pool. The company has given us a contract. So the high school team, which I mean they're on their way to state in a couple of weeks and doing quite well. They've won forty one state titles.
Martlsville High School has they train under our contract, so the club actually gives them water space and allows them to survive and grow and I get to coach them. The Wesleyan has a high school team and they train under our contracts. So it's it's a unique situation where all of the swimming in the community revolves around Splash Club and it has for seventy four years. The high school team was developed after Splash Club was developed and as part of the club
extension. And that's just a very unique situation in our community. That shows how important and how unique we are in this community. This is amazing. You know, these swimmers are such elite athletes, and you know, I dare you to find anybody who's in better shape than Sweaver, because you won't. You just won't. But the divers, I got a question about. That's a different bread. We used to have some wonderful, wonderful divers.
Unfortunately Oklahoma has discontinued diving as a sport. And if you've ever been to the Phillips A Quiet Center, those beautiful diving boards we used to have, they have been removed, which is a very sad thing. You never like to see a sports or lost. But so right now we just go back and forth, not up and down. All right, Well, maybe that's chafer in the long run. Yeah, because I had my concerns. I knew if you divers in high school, I'm not going you know, you're
just about that far from and evil buddy. Uh Now, when we talk about some of the things that we have going on here with the Splash Club, we have a vision that's a pretty good one too. Well, we have a couple of different What we really want to do is live up to the legacy of Splash Club, the founders in the International Hall of Fame. We've spent hundreds of athletes onto college programs. Like you said, the high school team has won forty one state titles, So are our vision? Nobody
does that. I'm sorry it was just off the scale, but congratulallys thank you. Yes I didn't win them all, but I've been there for a couple. But I think our vision is challenging tomorrow's leaders and building lifelong champions. And those six words meet a lot to us. They're on our team shirts, they're up on our scoreboard, and we really try it and promote
that. I think in today's society, we see too many kids not understanding how to live a true life, go ups and downs of failures and struggles and challenges, and we want to challenge them on a nightly basis and give them opportunities to fail and pick themselves back up. That push sverance, that
grit that this country was founded on. We try our best to really give the kids a practical experiment of how to do that, how to challenge themselves, how to grow through adversity, how to grow through challenges, how to work as a team. I really feel that most of our kids, when they come through, they don't understand how to work as a team. They understand how to be punctual. We practice before school, we practice after school, We teach lessons after we practice, so they have a full day.
For most of my high school athletes, we obviously don't ask that of our six year olds. A six year olds start a lett lower, but they watch these older ones. They watch these older ones get up it. Yeah, they really get into it. And I think that that's kind of what
we're trying to do. We're trying to be that calling to a better day and helping our kids grow and be able to persefere in ten years when their child cries at two in the morning and want them to get up strong and take a deep breath and handle that and then go off to work later on that day. I just I feel like our athletes are given the opportunity to learn those life skills. Indeed, and now I'm thinking, I know where that term in life came from. It came from the Splash Club. Well,
and I'll say, Chad's here. You know, he's our head coach, he's our executive director. He's running this program and doing a fantastic job. I support from a a as a board member and as a parent, and as someone who has two kids on the Splash Club. I'm convinced my kids are more prepared for life because they've been on the Splash Club. Everything we've said, critical banking, time management, just a responsibility. My kids get up earlier than I do most days. Some days are waking me up
to let me know they're leaving. I mean, it's been amazing the transformation. And I can speak for my kids, but I think I could say most swimmers are the same. Well, ye, just to see how they transition from and at a young age to just being so responsible. And one thing about swimming is you can do that for a good portion of your life, if not most of it. I know, guys of when you know other places where I've lived, they're in there. They're well into their seventies
and they'll go out and do forty laps and they're not even tired. Now, I'm like, she many we joke it's the only sport you can do from diapers back to diapers. I like that, but yeah, you know, you watch that and these guys they don't look like they're putting a whole lot of effort, but they have figured out how to make everything work, and boy, they just they just smoke right down the lane. It's like, how can you do that? Practice? You got to try it.
Okay, I'm with you. But it's amazing, it really is. And we've got such a great thing going. And I'd like to encourage folks if you have a business or if you just have a personal desire, to get a hold of JET and become a sponsor and just see how well that not only works for you, but how well it works for the kids in our community and our community as a whole. I mean, it's got a whole lot of different prongs that they go out to help. I think it's a
great thing. My goodness. Thanks. Now you're talking a little bit about the state tournament coming up here. We just touched on that a little bit. Ready, coach, ready to go. We've got a couple high school regionals our next weekend, and then two weeks later we'll have the high school state championships. Barlswill actually has three individuals that are defending state champions. Sam
Conrad is a young man out of Wesleyan. He's a defending state champion in the hunter breaststroke warn I am and then Griffin Craig is a two time defending champion in the hunter backstroke for Bartlesville, and Cody Lay is the defending state champion in the five hundred free style. Our girls fell a half a point short last year, but we've got a pretty good squad this year and we hope to make some noise there. Oh, they'll make up for that half
point, coach, I kind of know how this goes. They don't want that left on the table. No. I think they're pretty focused and pretty anxious to get back to competition. So that wraps up the high school season rap. So that third weekend in February, and then if anybody in the community is interested in watching, that first weekend in March, we host the
Senior State Championships. So the best swimmers, no matter what age, in all of Oklahoma come to Barlowsville to swim in that Senior State Championship meet. And that's it. Starts Friday morning early runs Friday all day Saturday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, all day Sunday, the finals. No admission costs. Oh, you just gotta asks come on in and cheer, and so we do light shows. It's an amazing experience. And here's a
plog for it. Splash Club's older kids have won the last four consecutive senior state championships. So from our little small community here in Barlowsville, we're competing against mega teams from Jenks and Edmund and all over the state and we are the four time defending state champion as a club. Well, I dog, I love it here you go, all right, something really worth taking a look at. When you're looking to invest in your community, folks, Please just give Jan a call. Jan, how do we get a hold of
you? Well, I think we're gonna we'll get a hold of the Yeah, yes, Chad can take but we'll be involved. And definitely, if you do happen to know me and want to get a hold of me, I can do the sponsorship just as much as Shad or any board member or any swimmer. Gotcha, swimmers do get incentive for finding sponsorship. So if you do know a swimmer in your life, they're probably looking to get some sponsorship, So reach out to them, let them know you're interested, and
they can also get you the forum and the information. Alrighty, And if you're looking to get a young child involved in a great program, same address, same phone number, look us up. We'll be having some lessons. We take a little break in Frabuk because life gets busy on all my instructors, Uh, most of my instructors are top flight athletes. Several instructors are headed off to swim in college next year, and you've got a great experience.
And when you come into lessons, it's not just some random person. You actually get to have your child with a member of the community that is doing the same things they're teaching your child, and they're doing it at an extremely high level, which gives the child a mentor, gives the child someone a role model look up to, and it just becomes a lot of fun. It's neat to see some of these kids that are now eight, nine, ten years old looking at some of the people that were their instructors going
off to swim in college and going out. We've got two girls that are headed off to Purdue Engineering this year, and to see our younger ones look at them like, wow, look what they've accomplished. And they've taught me how to do this sport. That's a gold mine right there. Produce a darn good school, Yes it is, it is, alrighty well, thank you very much. For being with us today. Appreciate it. Tom.
Alrighty folks, you've been watching and listening to our community connection. I'll never forget this call.