DAYTON, Ohio — One Ohio man recently added an American victory to a very special Canadian bird watching competition.
Raised in Piqua and now living in Dayton, Josh Fries, 33, recently became the first American to win the 22nd Annual Botham Cup Bird Race.
He and his wife, Sarah, headed up to Pelee Island on Lake Erie where he spent 24 hours hustling to bring home a win.
By day, Fries is a pediatric physical therapist at Dayton Children’s Hospital.
“Been a physical therapist for five years, been at Children’s here the whole time,” he said.
Fries loves helping children and has a lot of fun doing it.
“I see a lot of kiddos with developmental delays, so we spend a lot of time trying to make sure we’re moving the best we can,” he said.
During his off days, you’ll most likely find Fries outside. He also loves hiking, biking, and bird watching.
During the competition, it was his sharp eye, keen ear and just five hours of sleep that gave him the upper hand.
“You had to see the most diverse number of species, so I saw 104. Or saw 101 and heard three, I think it ended up being, but if you could confidently identify by sound, that counts, too. I was really happy. I was super excited,” he said.
For Fries, there’s a connection between his love of the outdoors and his passion for physical therapy.
Fries grew up spending time outside with his four brothers.
His older brother, Jordan, has cerebral palsy and some of their favorite times were spent outside being active.
“He’s awesome. Does everything on his own, has a couple of kids, is killin’ it. But when we were kids, he wasn’t able to speak well. He wasn’t able to use one of his arms very well, so he did Special Olympics. He participated in all these cool programs that I would then sometimes help out with and got exposed to children with different needs at a young age,” said Fries.
Fries is always encouraging people to get outside and try to feel a sense of serenity like he does.
“Look for things that are a little outside of myself and take some time to just not stress so much about what’s going on in my own life and just see what I can find, see what’s out there,” he said.
