Bemidji athletes win bronze, lead Water Carnival parade

Katie Fellows and Lisa Kiewatt brought home bronze medals from the Special Olympics USA Games and will lead Bemidji’s Water Carnival Grand Parade as grand marshals on Sunday, July 5 at 1 p.m. The Bemidji pair finished third in both unified female doubles bowling and unified team bowling, while Fellows also placed seventh in singles.

The Games ran June 20-26 across Minnesota, with bowling held at Lucky Strike in Blaine. The official results page said the event drew about 3,000 athletes, 1,500 coaches, 10,000 volunteers and 75,000 fans from all 50 states, putting the Bemidji competitors on one of the country’s biggest adaptive sports stages. Fellows’ profile listed her as 41 and identified Bemidji as her hometown.

Fellows and Kiewatt have been in Special Olympics together for more than 30 years, a local connection that helped turn the medals into a community story rather than a one-time tournament result. Before the Games, supporters gathered for a sendoff at Lucky Dogs and then at Paul Bunyan Park, where Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince joined the crowd as the athletes headed to the national meet.

Their return gives the Bemidji Jaycees’ 82nd Annual Water Carnival one of its most visible moments of the weekend. The grand parade role puts the sisters, who represented Minnesota as well as Bemidji, in front of a home audience that knows both their names and the institutions that helped carry them to the national stage.

The recognition also places Special Olympics and Unified sports at the center of one of Bemidji’s longest-running summer traditions. Fellows and Kiewatt will ride through downtown with their medals just days after competing in Blaine, linking a national result to local schools, families and recreation programs that have kept inclusive sports visible in Beltrami County for decades.