Kris Wright and his wife Heather experienced both outcomes of having premature babies simultaneously when their twins arrived early back in 2012.
Each game when Wright’s Western Albemarle girls basketball team takes the floor he wears a pin that memorializes his daughter Nora who didn’t survive complications from a surgery at three weeks old.
Her twin Colin, now a bubbly elementary school student, is thriving, an almost daily presence at Western practices. Their third child, Avery was born prematurely in 2015 and has thrived as well and will turn three this month.
The Wrights have translated their combination of grief and joy and a first-hand understanding of the issue into action with the Second Annual Play For Preemies Showcase scheduled for this Saturday at Western Albemarle with six girls varsity basketball games (with a junior varsity game thrown in) running from 11:30 a.m. to 8:15 p.m. The event benefits the University of Virginia Children’s Hospital and the Carilion Clinic Children’s Hopsital’s NeoNatal Intensive Care Units.
The event has doubled in size in just a year from just three varsity games to six and features solid squads from across the local area and the state including Louisa County, Western Albemarle and Charlottesville as well as Broadway, Battlefield . It’s an excellent chance for locals who haven’t gotten a chance to see Monroe’s standout junior Sam Brunelle play in Albemarle County as the Dragons face off against Wilson Memorial at 6:30 p.m.
The showcase also includes a lot of non-basketball entertainment with a baby race at halftime of game one as well as a bluegrass band, the Earlysville Bluegrass Boys at halftime of another game, plus door prizes throughout the day donated by Starbucks, Duck Donuts and Harris Teeter. Notussports.com will broadcast the last two games of the Showcase.
Tickets are $10 for an all-day pass and here is the schedule:
11:30 a.m. – R.E. Lee vs. Louisa County
1:15 p.m. – Waynesboro vs. Thomas Jefferson
3:00 p.m. – Battlefield vs. Charlottesville
3:00 p.m. Broadway vs. Western Albemarle (JV – aux gym)
4:45 p.m. – Colonial Forge vs. Broadway
6:30 p.m. – Wilson Memorial vs. William Monroe
8:15 p.m. – Glen Allen vs. Western Albemarle
