ST. GEORGE, Utah — The city of St. George is keeping up a decades-old friendship with a town in Japan. And their ambassadors are a couple of kids who can’t drive yet.
For a bunch of ninth graders, Ibigawa, Japan seems a lot closer to St. George, Utah now.
“I’ve never been that far out of the country before, so I'm excited to see what we'll be like,” Will Slade, a ninth grader at Desert Hills Middle School, said.
Slade is one of 10 ninth-grade winners of an essay contest in Washington County Schools who departed before dawn Tuesday for a weeklong trip to the town in southern Japan that is 5,700 miles from St. George, where both are hosting a marathon.
“The exchange with the St. George Marathon and the Ibigawa Marathon is really a cherished tradition that goes back to the late 1980s,” said St. George Communications Director David Cordero, who was joining the ninth graders and other city officials on the trip. “It's something that both marathon groups really look forward to each year. It's an awesome way to experience a different culture.
One of the prizes for the top winners of the St. George Marathon held just a few weeks ago, was a trip to Japan.
Slade also won for an essay about his service to the community.
“I got an email probably sometime during the summer and it showed all the list of the kids who were going. And I was on it,” Slade said. “I was super excited.”
Slade’s older sister is a past winner of the annual Japan trip.
“She said that she really liked the tubs there because they're like heated," she said. “I'm really excited to see the local art because I do pottery and stuff like that.”
Between the flight lasting more than a dozen hours and the long drive, the contingent from St. George that left really early on Tuesday morning arrived in Ibigawa on Wednesday morning Utah time. Though it's actually Thursday when you cross the International Date Line.
