The “Smile Wristbands” for volunteers of the Paralympic Games were officially unveiled on Thursday.

Bearing the five colors of the Olympic Rings, the wristbands are a set of tokens modeled on the “Smile Beijing” theme. The wristbands are meant to promote harmony and enhance civic-mindedness among the public. The Paralympic version of the”Smile Wristbands” are specially printed with Paralympic Games and volunteer slogans in braille.

It’s estimated that over 40 thousand volunteers from 27 countries and regions will serve at the Paralympic Games — 90 percent of whom have already served at the Beijing Olympic Games.

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RICHMOND – Last Friday, the mud in the fairgrounds parking area was as thick and sticky as cotton candy, the air filled with the competing aromas of cow patties (“barnyard honey”) and deep-fried Twinkies, and the Wurlitzer played its wurlitzing music welcoming all to the Washington County Fair.

“RELISHES – BUTTERS – PICKLES” announced the sign on the Washington County Fair General Store at the entrance. “Welcome to Udder Space” read another, just around the bend where the cattle were penned.

Game vendors begged stragglers to try their hand at popping a balloon or shooting a basket, practically guaranteeing a big blue stuffed gorilla (or green frog, or yellow SpongeBob SquarePants) to anyone who tried. Nearly three dozen rides twirled, twisted, looped and leaned in dizzying combination, bringing color and blur to the lazy day. Mechanical failure derailed the 1001 Nights ride – a jury box that swings like a pendulum until it eventually makes a full rotation, then reverses direction – for part of the morning. But, before long, brave souls were showing their bracelets or parting with tickets to swing and drop on creaky Baghdad kitsch.

Orange bracelets were sold for unlimited rides from noon to 5, and some families never left the ride area for the entire five hours, when they had Super Slid, Merry-Go-Rounded, Tilt-a-Whirled, Gravitroned, Orbitored, Sizzlered, Tornadoed, Flying Bobbed and Zippered to the point of meltdown..

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Columbus- The gray wristbands were everywhere this preseason, worn by nearly every Ohio State player you’d come across. “Thank You God, I Am Grateful” was inscribed in black on the gray bands, and you figured they were Jim Tressel’s idea.Right there, on page 43 of his new book, “The Winner’s Manual,” Tressel wrote about what he calls the attitude of gratitude – “I want our players to be continually reminded of how fortunate they are and what they have to be grateful for.”

But Tressel was not the creator of the bands, just an eventual recipient. Instead, they came courtesy of Euclid High grad Brandon Smith, who must have been paying attention to Tressel. Smith got one from his mom, Elzoria, who got it from co-worker Toni Garbo, who had started a Web site to distribute the wristbands then ignored it.

Smith hasn’t taken the wrist band off in more than a year, and he now has created a fashion trend among his teammates.

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SASKATOON – Heartsick relatives, friends and neighbours gathered by the hundreds in the small town of St. Brieux, Sask., on Wednesday for the last in a series of funerals for a mother and five little girls who died in an unexplained highway accident last week.

The sight of so many local kids weeping at the services for Charlene Bahan, her daughters Aspyn and Madison, and playmates Jasmine Coquet, Mikayla Piatt and Meara Hunt, has been nearly unbearable for people in the area, where virtually everyone feels some connection to them, said a local woman whose younger sisters were friends with the girls.

“It’s the last one, so I think people are feeling a sense of relief,” Ashley Major said after Hunt’s funeral concluded.

“But with the last one also comes the reality that this is exactly what’s happened and we have to deal with it now.”

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