Frank Lopez shares a story with Kellye Dorrough. CHRISSY OHLINGER / Special to the PVT Breann Meads doesn't fight fair but enjoys herself immensely as she pummels Zach Weldon from the PVHS Wrestling Team. Advertisement

For the Pahrump Valley High School Wrestling Team, winning isn't everything. They also believe in helping others and spending time to brighten the day of another person.

Thursday, March 6, 15 members of the champion wrestling team came to Rosemary Clarke Middle School to visit the Life Skills classroom. The team demonstrated wrestling moves to the class and then invited some of the kids to participate with them.

The girls in the class that wanted to wrestle were pretty tough, but the guys still won out. To tie the activity into reading month, the wrestlers broke into pairs and read a Dr. Seuss book with each student. Although this is the first official visit by the team, the relationship between the special needs students at RCMS and the high school wrestling team started months ago when Frank Lopez wanted to help out his little sister and make learning the alphabet more fun at school.

The first week of December the class was working on the letter J and asking students to bring things from home that started with that letter. Frank Lopez wrote a note to Anjala Lopez's teacher about how he wanted to help the class.

"I took the liberty of getting some jelly beans to represent the letter J. They are for Anjala and the class to feast on for the week. I will do everything in my power to try and send stuff in on a weekly basis," he wrote Tonia Petrie, Anjala Lopez's teacher.

Frank quickly became big brother to the entire class.

The next week "big brother" became plural as the entire wrestling team took up the cause. The team talked about the life skills class and how they wanted to participate in the class activities.

They couldn't come for a visit until now because their wrestling schedule was so full, but every week since November, the big brothers to the class have been sending in a food snack that starts with the letter the class is working on that week.

For Q the guys had to get creative -- they sent in Quaker rice cakes. Then the class was working on T, and Sedona Winn, when asked which was her favorite, answered "Twix."

Starbursts represented the letter S.

This was the team's first visit to the class, but everyone had a great time and wants the squad to come again. The big brothers are already planning their next visit and future goodies to send in to the class.

The class is excited about the wrestling team, too. They collect pictures of the team and talk about them in class.

They can't wait until their big brothers come back to visit them again.