People

‘One Good Leg Between Them’

Kirk Bauer, the executive director of Disabled Sports USA, is proving to the world that people with disabilities can lead as ruggedly physical a life as anyone else.

On Saturday, Kirk Bauer and two other members of Disabled Sports USA’s Warfighter Sports program reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. Kirk lost his left leg as an Army sergeant in Vietnam in 1969, and his fellow climbers were also wounded warriors: retired Army Sgt. Neil Duncan, a double leg amputee who was injured in Afghanistan, and retired Army Staff Sgt. Dan Nevins, a double below-knee amputee injured in Iraq. As Kirk said in a statement: “If three veterans from three wars and two generations with one good leg between them can climb the tallest mountain in Africa, then all with disabilities can choose to be active and healthy through sports.”

Read Kirk’s blog about the summit and see more great photos like the one above — which shows Dan Nevins, Kirk, and Neil Duncan on top of the world — at Warfighter Sports. And for some interesting thoughts on the similarities between meeting planning and mountain climbing, see the talented and glamorous Michelle Russell’s One on One interview with Million Dollar Round Table’s Ray Kopcinski, CMP.

Christopher Durso

Christopher Durso formerly was executive editor of Convene.