Each time a plane taxied to a stop at Lincoln Airport on Saturday morning, a family that had staked out some of the best real estate in the spectator section pressed a handmade "RUN JOEY RUN" sign up against the chain-link fence.
Jan Lieberman thought her 15-year-old grandson, Joey Barncord, would land at 9:24 a.m. after taking off with other Special Olympics athletes from the Sunshine State early Saturday. She figured out an hour later that she'd mixed up the time zones.
The designated time passed, and planes kept arriving and athletes kept deplaning. But they wore dark blue shirts from Michigan. Gold shirts from Minnesota. A batch of athletes in light blue shirts with the Florida state outline disembarked occasionally. But no Joey.
The anticipation drew in two Lincoln residents who'd come to the airport to show their support for the games and left feeling like part of Joey's fan club.
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"I've got goose bumps again," Roxanne Suesz said as another plane rolled to a stop. "I've got a good feeling about this one."
She and Lea Ann Johnson started asking about Joey, and this is what they found out:
He's 15 and participating in track and field. Both his older brother, Billy, 18, and his uncle Bernard have participated in regional Special Olympics tourneys, but Joey's the first in his family to qualify for the national games.
"It's a great honor," Lieberman said.
She, Billy, Bernard, her husband, Don, and their dog, Oreo, all drove from Coral Springs, Fla., to Lincoln in a 40-foot RV.
During a normal summer, Jan and Don would take the two grandkids across the country in the RV on trips to the Grand Canyon, Alaska -- "to places you normally won't see." When they found out Joey qualified for nationals, the plans, of course, changed.
"Does he know you're here waiting for him?" Johnson asked.
"Oh yeah," Jan said.
She told the Lincoln women the chartered plane ride marked her grandson's first time traveling alone. He was not nervous at all, she said.
"He was mad, because the bus (to the airport) was late."
Around 10:20 a.m., a smaller private jet stopped in front of the welcoming committee and a group wearing light blue shirts hopped off the plane. Joey's family stood once more and recognized the one in the middle of the pack with the tan hat.
"Yeah, Joey!" his brother, wearing a Special Olympics shirt and hat, yelled.
"Joey! Joey! Joey!" his uncle and grandfather shouted.
"Did you have a good flight?"
"Did you have fun, Joey?"
"Yeah!" he shouted over the engines. And then he headed off with the other athletes to the welcoming party.
Jan Lieberman turned to Johnson, who'd she'd met less than an hour earlier, hugged her and began to cry.
"There's nothing better than being a grandmother," Jan said as she wiped her eyes clean during the walk back to their SUV. "You can put that in the paper."
Reach Cory Matteson at 402-473-7438 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.
