Photo Courtesy of the News•Progress Archives
Pictured are six members of the 1983 Blue Dolphins Swim team which qualified for the Junior Olympics that March. Those who qualified were, clockwise from the top, Heather Highland, Darren Powell, Brad Voltz, now current Blue Dolphins Head Coach Jason Drury, Trenton Guyot, and Justin Dunscomb.

•September 16, 2015•

Open House Friday

Fifty years of Sullivan Blue Dolphin swimmers have trained at the Civic Center, and this Friday, September 18 an open house commemorates the occasion.

Everyone is invited to the Sullivan Civic Center from 4-7 p.m. Friday to help the Blue Dolphins celebrate their Golden Anniversary.

Swimming heritage started the day the doors opened at the Civic Center with 525 splashing in the Olympic sized pool.

When Charles Smith came in as director, the school district allowed students to receive swimming lessons. This led to the eventual birth of a competitive swim team.

Early competitions involved surrounding counties and included Olympic swimmer Lynn Alsup of Bloomington.

By 1974 Steve Ludwig reorganized the team into the Blue Dolphins.

Now, as in the beginning, the city of Sullivan has supported the swim team providing them a free pass for all practices and competitions.

Blue Dolphins coach Jason Drury is a Sullivan native who swam for the team in the 1980s.

He was among the first Blue Dolphins to compete at the state level.

Drury has been with the Blue Dolphins for the past 10 years, building it from 20 to 80 swimmers.

“Swimming is a progression,” he told Joash Tiarks in August. “In the early years, it does not matter how fast you are…using the correct form and stroke is the key.”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.