Olds College instructors Larry Couture Kurt Spady and Bob Van Someren and many of their students will be volunteering during the Canada Winter Games.
The Games take place Feb. 15 to March 3 in Red Deer.
Couture, who teaches agri-business and sports management, says as many as 24 of his students are volunteering and are expected to write a report on their experiences.
The idea to volunteer was hatched last spring when he, Spady and Van Someren noted the Games were coming up.
Couture spoke to the Albertan on behalf of the three of them.
"The three of us teach sports management students and we realized with the Canada Winter Games, that was going to be a natural opportunity for us to participate in what they call a once-in-a-generation event and use that to help them to gain some great, valuable experience as well as learn a few things in the world of sports," he said during an interview with the Albertan.
"We are leading by example."
At least 24 of Couture's students will be volunteering during the Games.
Couture will be a supervisor at the media centre. Spady is supervising the biathlon and Van Someren has been assigned to the festival area.
Couture's students will be volunteering with various sports and activities, including biathlon and snowboarding.
One student, Katie Hendrickson, a second-year business management student with a major in sports management, will be volunteering as a minor official in two sports — badminton and wheelchair basketball.
Hendrickson is pretty confident of her abilities to officiate at badminton, but she admits wheelchair basketball may be a bit of a challenge.
"I played badminton in junior high and high school, but I've never really watched or had anything to do with wheelchair basketball," she said.
"I'm really excited to kind of see more of the para-sports, as I've always been more involved in able-bodied sports. So I think it will be a great opportunity."
Couture and Hendrickson admit fitting in Games volunteering and classes at Olds College will be a challenge.
"We're somewhat lucky that it's our reading week for the first week and then we've had to get a bit creative — in my case, trading classes with another instructor. So it's going to be busy juggling, but (we're) trying to get as much of the experience as we can," he said.
