West Plains Wrestling Club Receives Funding
West Plains Wrestling Club Awarded R.E.A.C.H.E.S. Funding
The West Plains Wrestling Club was started by Jeff & Libby Gall in 2012. Over the past three seasons the club has grown from 4 wrestlers to more than a dozen wrestlers. 20 + youth from the community have expressed an interest in the 2015/2016 wrestling season. We have been working diligently trying to raise money for mats. Our mats belong to Jeff & Libby and they are unfortunately moving out of state this year. The club has full intentions of continuing and growing however. We currently have three other certified coaches, support of the local armory for practices in the upcoming season and have received our 501(c)(3) and Missouri non-profit statuses. We are very grateful to Walt Fisk and the entire R.E.A.C.H.E.S. organization.With the grant money we have received we will be able to provide our wrestlers with ear guards, singlets, and uniforms. We will also be purchasing a portable scoreboard and anklets for scrimmages. We have a decided to purchase mat tape and cleaner as well. We KNOW we will continue in our fundraising efforts and purchase our new mats! Thanks to R.E.A.C.H.E.S. we can use all of our fund raising efforts towards purchasing new mats as the grant is helping with many of our other needs. We are small but mighty! We had three state qualifiers this year and one state champion. We are becoming a very proud and visible group in our community. As we continue to grow, we also will be working with our high school to hopefully start a wrestling program and make sure that West Plains is no longer the only school in the Ozark Conference without a wrestling team. Again thank you and see you in the 2015-2015 season! Look for us at the Kansas City Brute Nationals. We will be sporting new matching singlets and warm-up gear thanks to R.E.A.C.H.E.S. We can now not only be the proudest wrestling organization but look the part too!
About R.E.A.C.H.E.S.
R.E.A.C.H.E.S. (Rewarding Educational Athletic Choices Helping Each Sport) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 2007 in an effort to promote, protect and preserve the integrity of amateur athletics by providing athletic and educational opportunities to all athletes of all ages and abilities. This unique experience will provide educational, technical, and lifelong lessons for athletes, coaches, parents and fans that seek to capture meaningful, compassionate, harmonious, interesting and active lives. All profits from R.E.A.C.H.E.S. will be used to support specific needs in each sport to ensure future generations of athletes, fans, parents and coaches will continue to learn from valuable lifelong athletic lessons.
About Brute Wrestling Brute
Wrestling was founded in 1967, in Virginia, by retired U.S. Navy Captain Josiah Henson. Captain Henson was an Olympic bronze medalist in Freestyle wrestling in 1952 and the first American wrestler to beat a Russian at the Olympics. The company began as the first wrestling mail order business. John Purnell joined the company in 1975 and in 1977 became the President and majority owner. Shortly thereafter, Purnell moved the company to Reading, Pennsylvania to begin manufacturing wrestling uniforms under the brand name Brute Wrestling. At that time, the company began distributing through a network of sporting goods dealers. In 1989, a line of soccer uniforms was added under the name Liga Soccer. In 2003, the company product line was expanded to include custom uniforms for volleyball, softball and basketball under the brand name NeuEdge Sportswear. NeuEdge Sportswear quickly became one of the leading producers of custom sublimated team uniforms in the country. In 2010, Henson Group launched a lacrosse and field hockey line under the brand Evolve Team Sportswear. Today Henson Group Sports provides a complete line of top quality wrestling, lacrosse, softball, basketball and volleyball products and apparel to sporting goods dealers; amateur and professional athletic clubs and teams; and other buyers all over North America.
