 A few of Bemidji's finest swimmers are heading to Seattle this week to represent Minnesota in the Special Olympics. Reporter Cheryl Moore is live in studio tonight to tell us about their journey. Cheryl? Thank you, Dennis. Parker Bruins and Sean Kiefer have been working towards this moment for about two years now. Their send-off ceremony was held today at Lucky Dogs in Bemidji. Not only did they get a few hot dogs named in their honor, the swimmers also got to lead a parade across downtown. The men's coach says Parker and Sean don't just put in work in the pool. They also spend their time working out outside of the water. They're very intense to get going through all this because it's not an easy event to get to. It's a special event. You only have eight athletes in the entire state of Minnesota they get to go. They're competing against people from every state in the nation. So what an opportunity and they have to train really hard and it's an endurance thing. It's them practicing every week. Sean will swim Monday and Tuesday at the Games and then Parker will compete on Wednesday and Thursday. The boys say they're looking forward to representing Bemidji as well as making their family and friends and coaches proud. As we're calling it, this look for competition down there right off the bat. It's really nice, I'm all this. I'm pretty happy all this year and then right inside here. The boys will leave for Minneapolis tomorrow and then they will fly out to Seattle with the rest of the Minnesota team on Saturday. Dennis, back to you. All right. Thanks, Cheryl, for that live report tonight. There will also be a welcome back ceremony held in their honor in mid-July. We'll update the story on lptv.org when we have an official date. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.