Couple’s special engagement

Photo: BEN WATSON

CELEBRATING LOVE: Special Olympians Tim Fairhall and Rebecca Everard celebrate their recent engagement.

Lovebirds Tim Fairhall and Rebecca Everard have just celebrated their engagement.

The North Harbour Special Olympic swimmers went to pick out a ring together and had a celebratory lunch with their mothers before Mr Fairhall, 30, got down on one knee and asked 27-year-old Miss Everard to marry him.

"She’s a lovely person and I care very much about her. I will love her always," says former Rangitoto College student Mr Fairhall.

Miss Everard says they both understand each other because they have the same disability, downs syndrome.

The couple met seven years ago when they first started flatting in Te Atatu with help from a support trust.

One day they hope to live in their own place together with help from the trust.

Both of them compete in the Special Olympics swimming team and have competed in international Special Olympics events.

Miss Everard won North Harbour sport junior sports women of the year in 2003 and also won a gold and silver medal for swimming at the Dublin games.

Mr Fairhall competed in the Shanghai Special Olympics games in 2007 and won a gold medal in the butterfly swimming race.

"We are very competitive. I’m always first and then Becs," says Mr Fairhall.

But Miss Everard disagrees: "I don’t know about that boy."

The pair are also keen on acting and regularly act in theatre shows.

Mr Fairhall has also been in commercials for the IHC, an organisation that supports people with intellectual disabilities.

The couple wanted to get engaged a year ago and their parents set out 30 life skills goals for them to achieve before they decided to commit to each other.

Mr Fairhall’s mother Joan says it was to help them learn to be a partnership.

She says within that time they have both grown so much.

The couple plans to get married in 2010 or 2011.