Coyote Ridge named to ESPN’s 2026 Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Honor Roll
CHEYENNE — Coyote Ridge Elementary, a Special Olympics Unified Champion School, has been named to ESPN’s Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools Honor Roll after earning national banner recognition from Special Olympics. ESPN’s honor roll recognizes 45 outstanding schools nationwide that meet the requirements for national banner recognition. These requirements include participating in Special Olympics Unified Sports, inclusive youth leadership and whole-school engagement, according to the Special Olympics website. Chelsea Cox, the principal at Coyote Ridge, shared with the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that during the three years the school for grades 5 and 6 has been open, their focus has been on building a good foundation for students and shaping “really good humans.” “Inclusion has always been really important to me,” Cox said. “Becoming a Unified Champion School gave us some really good goals to work toward.” More than 50 schools in Wyoming participate in the Unified Champion Schools model, though Coyote Ridge was the only one to be recognized by Special Olympics and ESPN in 2026. Cody High School was the first Wyoming school to be recognized by the programs in 2019, and Johnson Junior High School was the first Cheyenne school to be recognized in 2024. “When we received
