By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Robin Miller, a fourth-grader at Alabaster’s Warrior Center for special-needs students, was all smiles after he hit a hole-in-one on the mini golf board set up outside Thompson Middle School on Oct. 29.

“Yes!” Miller shouted as he was cheered on by his classmates, teachers and TMS eighth-graders.

Aside from jumping in an inflatable bounce house and pulling lollipops out of a pumpkin at a booth set up inside the school, the mini golf hole was Miller’s favorite activity at the Warrior Center fall day, he said.

His response when asked if he wanted to provide comment on the event’s second year?

“You’ve got the right person,” Miller said with a smile.

The fall day was the second such event for the Warrior Center students in as many years, and just like last year, this year’s fall day was completely student-organized.

Many of the same TMS students who organized the event last year were eager to return to get this year’s fall day off the ground.

“It’s very reassuring to see how many people stepped up to make this happen,” said TMS eighth-grader Noah Tanner, who has led the event’s organization the past two years. “It’s good to see everyone coming together to make fall day a success.”

Over the past few months, Tanner and several of his eighth-grade classmates worked to secure donations and sponsorships for the event to cover the cost of renting the bounce house and purchasing prizes for the games.

In the weeks leading up to the event, the eighth-grade volunteers signed up for specific jobs, and seemed to be enjoying the fall day as much as their Warrior Center counterparts.

“They have all been attentive and supportive of the kids,” Warrior Center teacher Candice Chenault said of the TMS volunteers. “There has been a learning element for them as well, because they had to study and see what kinds of sensory activities were best for our special-needs kids.”

Because the organizers of the past two fall days are in eighth-grade and will be moving on to Thompson High School next year, they have already begun grooming their replacements.

“We are trying to get more seventh-graders involved so they can continue the Warrior legacy,” Tanner said.