As high schoolers end their year, elementary school students across Texarkana Independent School District gather at the THS practice field and track for a fun day of games, exercise and making new friends. On May 6, 2026, Texas High STUCO held its annual Tiger Strong Field Day, attended by students from Wagoneer Creek, Westlawn, Parks Elementary, Dunbar, Wake Village, TMS and THS.

“The goal of hosting Tiger Strong Field Day is to bring everyone together,” junior Kenzie Wiley said. “We wanted to make sure we’re doing something special for the special needs kids.”

In order to make the day special for each individual kid, the organizers developed a buddy system.

“Each student gets a [high school student as a] buddy that we call and they just walk around and play games with them,” senior Grace Raley said. “They make sure that they’re having a good time, and the system gives everyone a friend to walk around and play games with throughout the day.”

Behind the scenes, however, organizing the event and making sure every attendee developed a positive experience required months of preparation from the student organizers and volunteers.

“It takes a while just to coordinate and give jobs to all of the students that come,” Raley said. “I’d say it took probably about a month and a half to two months to plan.”

After all of the preparation for the field day to take place outside, the organizers were required to change venues due to the rain forecast.

“We were originally supposed to have it on the track,” Raley said. “Then it rained, so we had to move it to the multi. With all the construction going on in the multi, we had to rearrange some games.”

Despite the last-minute adjustments, the planners still focused on the need for every student to be included.

“It’s important for students to have days like this so that they know that everybody can be included,” Wiley said. “Even if somebody looks different than them.”