The Wytheville Waves swim team was defeated by Galax in a meet held July 7 at Galax.

The winner of last Friday’s (July 13) Footbrake Eliminator event at Elk Creek Dragway was Rural Retreat’s Roy Waller.

During a special Monday night race at Wythe Raceway, the half mile high banked dirt superspeedway, young Cody Umberger of Rural Retreat captured his first career victory in the Hornet Division and Leon McMahan of Marion scored his first win in the U-Cars.

The Wythe Bowhunters Archery Club hosted the National Field Archery state championships on June 23 & 24.

Jake Lewis of Wytheville won a gold medal last Saturday in the annual Coventry Commonwealth Games.

Kenny Peeples Jr. and Brandon Umberger, both of Rural Retreat, have spent the last several weeks splitting wins, and along with Phil Gann of Mayodan, N.C., are the only repeat winners this season at Wythe Raceway.

Elizabethton stayed in solid control of the West Division of the Appalachian League on Monday, July 9 with an 18-0 thumping of Greeneville. The win put the Twins, with just two losses on the season, 7 1/2 games ahead of Kingsport in the division. In other Appy League baseball games Monday, Bluefield out-slugged Johnson City 11-9, Burlington bullied Kingsport 18-3 and Bristol bumped off Princeton 5-3.

The fourth annual Big Walker Century Ride was held on July 7 with bike riders traveling five different courses over Wythe and Bland counties.
Riders had a choice of traveling 25, 40, 50, 62 or 100 miles.

Kwik Kix Martial Arts & Fitness (KKMA), L.L.C. held its best testing and graduation for the “Little Kickers” (pre-school ages 4-6) and for children and youth (age 7-13) on June 2 and June 16.
All students were required to demonstrate stances, kicks, punches, strikes, and kata (forms) based on the student’s knowledge of content (training “time in”) and age appropriate developmental motor skills. Running, push-ups and sit-ups were also all a part of the student’s skills test.

Matthew Heldreth will be suiting up one more time tomorrow night.
After leading the Rural Retreat High School football team to a thrilling ’07 season back in December, Heldreth graduated this spring.