North Slope Borough athlete shines in Native Youth Olympics, celebrating culture and community

Samuel Arey of the North Slope Borough School District edged one of Alaska’s most familiar Native Youth Olympics competitors in the toe kick, tying the best distance at 88 inches and finishing ahead of Don Heflin because he needed fewer misses. Arey’s result at the Alaska Airlines Center put a North Slope student in the middle of a competition that still measures more than athletic ability.

The senior games ran April 16-18 in Anchorage and were open to in-state students up to age 19. In that setting, Heflin, a 16-year-old sophomore at Bettye Davis East Anchorage High School, showed the range that has made him a standout over a decade of NYO competition. He finished second in the Alaskan high kick and the two-foot high kick, while Arey’s toe kick win gave the North Slope Borough School District a clear local highlight on a statewide stage.

That stage matters in the borough because Native Youth Olympics is built around the same balance, endurance and skill Alaska Native people once relied on for survival. For North Slope students, the sport is not just a championship event in Anchorage. It is part of a pathway that starts in the district’s regional competition, where students from all eight villages in grades 7-12 compete in 11 events and the top two in each event advance to state.

That pipeline helps explain why a result like Arey’s resonates beyond the gym floor. It connects students in communities across North Slope Borough to a broader Iñupiaq tradition, while also giving them a visible place in one of Alaska’s most recognizable youth cultural competitions. In a state where one boy and one girl per event can represent each team at the senior games, even a single finish can carry the weight of a village, a school and a district.

Native Youth Olympics has been part of Alaska since 1972, and Cook Inlet Tribal Council has hosted NYO Games Alaska since 1986. The Alaska Sports Hall of Fame says more than 2,000 young people statewide participate year-round, and in 2015 more than 400 athletes qualified for the Anchorage finals in some years. That same survey found 75% said NYO motivated them to stay in school and keep their grades up, 69% said it raised self-confidence, and 47% said it increased leadership skills and self-esteem. For North Slope students like Arey, those numbers put a broader frame around a simple result in Anchorage: cultural continuity, school engagement and community pride all travel together.