A Youth Inspiration Bursary Award, presented by HEAD/Tyrolia, is awarded to Kayla Dixon, a first-year University of Alberta student, who took on an amazing initiative with her dad and grandfather while she was still in high school. 

Kayla is a passionate competitive waterski and wakeboard enthusiast, and noticed how her sport lacked special equipment for adaptive athletes and took it upon herself to change that. She began to design special equipment with her dad – and then joined her grandfather in his woodworking shop to make and build the equipment.  Their amazing collaborative efforts have made it possible for adaptive athletes in the B.C. Interior to experience competition in an entirely new way.  

Kayla commented that the process of building the skis was arduous, time consuming and took help from others to get the project to the finish line. “I want to thank Rob Gosse, Parnell Pinette and Cam Pinette who helped this project come together and also want to give a huge thanks to my grandpa, Mark Dixon, who made the jump ski with me and my dad, Paul Dixon, who made the trick skis with me.”

Lastly, I again want to give another huge thank you to my sponsors, Shuswap ski and board, Windsor Plywood and Liquid Force, who have been wonderful to work with and are amazing companies with the best people. Go check out KWSC YouTube to see the process of making and testing of the skis.