BUCKEYE BULLETIN

Schools for the Deaf and Blind Likely to Be Combined
by Eric Duffy

BLIND, Inc., a Life-Changing Experience
by Sarah Leon

Saving Money for NEWSLINE
by David Meyer

Ohio Convention Just Around the Corner
by Mary Pool

Ohio Mentoring Project
by Deborah Kendrick

Federationists Busy in Congress and State Capital
by Eric Duffy

More than Meets the Eyes and Ears, Lecturer Speaks about Abilities of the Visually Impaired
by Karen Brosz

2007 NFB of Ohio Committee Assignments
by Barbara Pierce

Buckeye Briefs

Activities Calendar

* Get a supply of NFB of Ohio brochures or the “What Is the National Federation of the Blind?” brochures, and stamp a chapter contact address and phone number on them. Then take a handful to optometrists, ophthalmologists, relevant social service offices, senior centers, retirement facilities, public libraries, and churches.
* Hand-carry state and national scholarship forms to disabled student services offices at area postsecondary institutions and high school guidance counselors. * Take Braille Readers Are Leaders forms to the director of special education in your school district.
* Use October (Meet the Blind Month) to staff a table in a public place and pass out NFB-NEWSLINE® information, Talking Book library applications, the Voice of the Diabetic, and other NFB and general blindness literature.
* Identify physicians with a number of diabetic patients, and keep them supplied with issues of the Voice of the Diabetic.
* Use Braille Literacy Week (the week beginning on Louis Braille’s birthday, January 4) for high-profile activities in libraries, scout troops, or schools that will get newspaper coverage.
* Conduct a technology fair and publicize it to the community, inviting people losing vision to come and see what is available.

Obviously you can’t do all of these things, but you can decide on several. Spread the work around the chapter, and be sure to collect the names and phone numbers of every blind person or person losing vision that you come across. It is always a good idea to spread the chapter’s name and a contact number around, but if you want to get new members, you must contact them.
As you identify potential members, don’t be afraid to think outside the box of our traditional organizational structures. College students might meet on campus with one or two chapter members present to supply information and answer questions. Residents of a retirement facility might form a support group led or mentored by the chapter. Young members of the chapter might be encouraged to get together regularly for social outings. Young families would enjoy doing kid-centered activities together. The chapter can sponsor all these efforts and pull folks together periodically for business meetings and to plan projects. Don’t be afraid to organize more than one chapter in a large geographical area. If transportation or work schedules or conflicting personal responsibilities make it impossible for some people to get to chapter meetings, consider whether a second chapter might be the answer. The point is to design meetings and programs that everyone will find interesting and convenient to get to.
Now the slow work of cultivation begins. Assign members to follow through with the folks with whom they seem to have something in common: parents of blind children, diabetics, macular degeneration, college students, etc. The object is to maintain contact and gentle pressure to attend the next meeting. Do not give up when the person does not show. Be sure to get the names and addresses of anyone who wishes to receive the state newsletter and the Braille Monitor to me, and don’t forget to tell me which publication they want and what format they prefer. The object is to make friends and guide the newcomer into an understanding of what we do and how we live our lives.
It helps when chapter meetings are busy and interesting and when people will take the time to explain to newcomers what is going on. When activities attract new members, they help to energize the existing membership as well. When members are asked to answer the questions of new members, they will do a better job of reading our literature and discussing ideas. That is healthy for everyone.
You should always work to get as many members as possible to state board meetings, state conventions, and the national convention. These events help people to understand what we are accomplishing across the state and country. Recruiting new members is more like searching for gold than picking apples. Identifying gold on the ground or in a stream takes practice, and the true nuggets are few and far between. On second thought, perhaps recruiting members is more like searching for shells buried in the sand. They come in great variety and degrees of damage, but an eager seeker can usually find intriguing or attractive specimens in even a short walk along the beach. Recruiting new members is essential work if our chapters are to remain or become healthy. Every chapter in this affiliate could benefit from an ambitious membership program. But remember that one of the greatest benefits of such an effort is the vitality that it will bring to the existing chapter and its current members. And when chapter members are committed and excited, new members will be attracted like iron filings to a magnet.
In some ways I have kept the best news for last in this column. All the things that I have said about recruiting new members are true, and membership development is a lot of work. But we have a secret weapon in this effort. The catch is that often our own members do not recognize that the tool is in our hands. Even when we do realize this fact, we often use it like a bludgeon rather than the enticement that it actually is. I am speaking of the philosophy of hope and possibility that is the bedrock of the Federation.
Do you remember the story in the Book of Acts in the New Testament in which Peter and John are approaching the temple? They come upon a man who has been lame from birth. He asks them for alms, but the two disciples have no cash to give. Peter looks with compassion on the helpless beggar and says, “Gold and silver have I none, but what I have, I give you. Rise up and walk.”
Every time we speak with a blind person who has never met the Federation philosophy, we are like Peter and John. We don’t have professional services or funds for technology to offer the newly blind person, but we can offer information, experience, optimism, and high expectations for the future. In effect we are offering an invitation to rise up and walk forward with a friend and guide who knows the way and who can avoid the pitfalls. We can provide sympathetic understanding without pity and our own dreams of what we can achieve together.
Not everyone has the courage to take this gift, and very few dare to believe in it when they first hear what we say. That is why we must be subtle and patient and teach by example rather than preaching. Learning to live what we believe and to teach slowly is the real challenge of membership building, but mastering these skills provides deep satisfaction and builds a powerful organization that truly will change what it means to be blind.
Very few if any of us are far enough along in this journey toward equality to be expert in nurturing new members into active membership in the Federation family without ever making a misstep or a mistake. We are all learning and growing, which is why we so often find ourselves needing each other’s help. My private opinion is that Peter was not all that confident of what was going to happen when he issued the invitation to the lame man to rise up and walk. I can imagine his astonishment and delight when the beggar took him at his word, stood up, and began to dance. I can imagine Peter’s excitement because I have experienced it myself when my faltering efforts to give the Federation to someone have resulted in reviving hope and new life for a blind person who had been despairing. I invite every member and chapter to discover this thrill for yourself.

Schools for Deaf, Blind May Share New Campus
by Simone Sebastian
The Columbus Dispatch
Thursday, February 1, 2007

Deaf students and blind ones will share a campus if state and school officials can work out a $40 million plan to create a modern complex for the Ohio State School for the Blind and the Ohio School for the Deaf.
Preliminary plans call for the combined campus to be built on the School for the Deaf's 138-acre property at 500 Morse Road. The current home of the School for the Blind, at 5220 N. High Street, would be abandoned and could be made available for private development. The combination would allow the schools to replace older buildings with modern ones and share costs such as custodial, food and health services, but officials stressed that their educational programs would remain distinct.
"Both schools will retain their identities," School for the Deaf Superintendent Edward E. Corbett Jr. said through an interpreter. He is deaf.
"There really will be no change" for students, he said, because deaf and blind students have different needs. With deafness they deal with communication. With blindness they deal with mobility.... It's like mixing oranges and apples."
School officials hope to be ready to ask the state legislature for money next spring or summer, with a goal of completing the project by 2012. The state-run schools, which serve students across Ohio, operate on adjacent campuses separated by trees and a ravine at the corner of Morse Road and N. High Street. The School for the Deaf has 142 students. The School for the Blind has 128. The state appropriated $4 million for the schools to begin planning the consolidation under the oversight of the Ohio School Facilities Commission, an independent state agency. The commission is collecting bids from architectural firms to design the new campus. Over the next year the commission, architects, and school officials will determine what would need to be built. If the timeline continues as planned, construction could begin next summer, said Lou Mazzoli, superintendent of the School for the Blind. It is unclear how extensive the merger would be. The schools' classrooms would remain distinct, but officials are uncertain whether they would share auditoriums, cafeterias, dormitories, and other larger spaces. Whether the consolidation would affect jobs also remains to be seen, Mazzoli said. "We're going to have to evaluate that," he said. "It's not going to happen tomorrow." Mazzoli stressed that the plan is not definite and said it's possible that the blind school's campus would be used instead of the deaf school's. It's unlikely the schools would move to another site, he said. "The site that comes up the most often is the front part of the property of the Ohio School for the Deaf," he said. "But we're taking a look at all factors." The state owns both properties. The School for the Blind is in a good location for developers because of other projects in the area, said Mike Simpson, a commercial broker with NAI Ohio Equities. The Casto development company is renovating Graceland Shopping Center, which is across High Street from the school. The city is working on plans to rebuild the Northland Mall area on Morse Road, just east of the campus. However, the buildings on the School for the Blind's campus, which date from the 1950s, could have limited potential. Both schools have been struggling with deteriorating infrastructure, old electrical systems, and collapsing sewer lines. "It's a single-use building," Simpson said. "That's always a challenge when it comes to selling because it narrows the prospect list. Charter schools could be candidates for a property like that." Mazzoli said it's too early to guess what would happen to the School for the Blind campus if the project moves forward as expected. Students in both schools would benefit from technology improvements at the new campus, administrators said.
Administrators said they hope the combined campus would provide more opportunities for the students to interact. Currently the blind students' marching band performs at the deaf students' football games.

Barbara Pierce and I were then contacted by a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch in mid-March. Although this subject has received considerable press coverage, we will reprint one final article:

Campus for Deaf, Blind Opposed Alumni Fear Social,
Safety Issues if State Schools Share Space
Monday, March 19, 2007
Simone Sebastian
The Columbus Dispatch

Alumni are fighting a plan to create a single campus for the state schools for the deaf and the blind, saying mingling their student bodies will create safety and social problems. They fear that students’ inability to communicate could lead to teasing and bullying if the Ohio State School for the Blind and Ohio School for the Deaf share facilities such as a gym and cafeteria. Forcing the students to interact will destroy the deaf school’s culture, said Richard Huebner, president of its alumni association. "We will start a petition, rally, and protest," Huebner said through an interpreter. "We’ll fight this to the bitter end to keep them separate."
Some alumni of the blind school fear that deaf students will take advantage of their blind peers if the campuses are combined. Deaf students might beat up blind students because they can’t see their abuser, said Doug Emerson, recording secretary for the blind school’s alumni association. But he said the blind alumni won’t impede the project.
"It is a done deal. It would be a moot point to go against it," Emerson said. "It does make good economic sense to do this."
The state-run schools’ campuses are separated by a ravine near the intersection of High Street and Morse Road. The state has appropriated $4 million to begin planning a consolidation of their campuses on the School for the Deaf’s 130-acre property to save money on operating costs. Their educational programs would remain separate.
If the project goes as planned, it will cost about $40 million and will be completed by 2012, officials have said. Officials from both the blind and deaf schools said they haven’t decided how much their students will interact but said that they will prevent violence. Officials won’t decide until June, at the earliest, whether the schools will share a gym, cafeteria, and other common areas, said Eric Algoe, chief operating officer for both schools. Members of the deaf-alumni association fear that merging the campuses will compromise deaf students’ self-esteem and conviction that deafness is not a handicap." I don’t feel I have a disability. Many deaf people don’t," Huebner said. "If you add another handicap (at the school) ... they’ll have no identity, no self-esteem."
That’s not an issue for the blind, said Barbara Pierce, president of the National Federation of the Blind’s Ohio division. "There’s a deaf culture in a way that there’s not a blindness culture," she said. Harlan Lane, a professor and author on deaf culture from Northeastern University in Boston, said government institutions started separating deaf people and blind people in the nineteenth century because of the stark differences in their needs. But economic constraints have reversed that trend. Now about twelve schools in the United States teach blind students and deaf students on the same campus, school officials said. Lane said that is an affront to deaf culture. "Their deaf world has its own customs, own values," he said. "They don’t see it as a disability, so to put them with a group that does see themselves as having a disability ... it cuts very deep."
School administrators say the plan makes economic sense. Buildings at both schools are deteriorating, they said, and the project will construct new ones and include state-of-the-art technology. The combined campus also will allow officials to merge services such as maintenance, food and custodians.
"That is a considerable cost savings to the state," deaf-school Superintendent Edward E. Corbett Jr. said through an interpreter. He is deaf. "Our buildings are not conducive to good teaching," he said. "The new school building will afford us good planning and help us achieve the school we want for the future of our students." Community meetings about the project will be held across the state, beginning with one today in Columbus. That meeting will be held at the Ohio School for the Deaf from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

As President of the National Federation of the Blind of Ohio, Barbara Pierce was invited to serve on an advisory council for this project. For a variety of reasons she asked me to serve in her place. I agreed, and Barbara contacted Eric Algoe to discuss the change in representatives. Mr. Algoe was quite agreeable, and although I have not yet met him, our email exchanges have been both pleasant and productive. Here is one such exchange:
Hello Eric, I understand that some preliminary meetings have already taken place on this subject and that a meeting or two are even scheduled over the next couple of weeks. I want to be sure that I will have the opportunity to provide meaningful service on an advisory council. I certainly do not want my involvement to be mere window dressing.
What can you tell me about the meetings that have already taken place and that are scheduled to happen before the council meets for the first time? What decisions have already been made, and are they binding? Cordially,
Eric

The meetings that we have had to date involved current students, staff, alumni, administrators from the schools, and the Ohio School Facilities Commission, about 60 people all told. The purpose of these meetings has been to determine a Program of Requirements (POR), which is just a list of the types of spaces and associated square footage of each. I suspect the end result of these meetings (the final POR) will be hard to change later on, but not impossible.
We are going to see a first draft of the POR on Monday, so we are all on pins and needles right now. We then have another meeting on Wednesday with the group I described above to respond and adjust that first draft. A fourth meeting is scheduled for April 23rd to try to finalize the POR, and we are scheduled to turn it over to the architects on May 4th. Keep in mind that the POR says nothing about how we use the spaces they give us or where they should be located--neither the site nor the relationship to each other. We still have all that to figure out.
I plan to put something together for the advisory council this weekend and send them a copy of that first draft POR. At the first meeting I hope to have the architects give you a presentation of their vision and take your questions.
We can't afford to have anyone involved as just window dressing. We need everyone's honest and heartfelt input to make sure we give the kids the best possible school. I'm just trying to balance the time needed of the advisory council as some of the members are from out of state. Would you like to attend one of our planning committee meetings that I mentioned above? The next one is April 4th from 8:30 AM to 3:00 PM in the gymnasium of the Ohio School for the Deaf.
Eric

Although I am glad we have been invited to the table, I feel like a dinner guest who was invited as an afterthought. I believe OSSB Superintendent Louis Mazzoli should have invited the organized blind to the table before the dinner bell sounded. We should have been a part of the discussions long before the first story ran in the media. Nonetheless we now have a seat at the table, and I plan to make the best of it for the organization.
In a public meeting Dr. Mazzoli explained that the plan to combine the schools was not put forward by either administration. He said that the state controlling board told both superintendents that it was tired of both schools nickeling and diming the state to death by asking for money for repairs and improvements to each school, and that each superintendent should come to the board to request money for new facilities. He said that near the end of the Taft administration the notion of combining the schools took on a life of its own when a Taft official said there would be one budget and one school.
Knowing the ways of politics and government, this is not hard to believe. We in the National Federation of the Blind, however, are purists, and we are not at all excited about combining the two schools in any way. This does not mean that we are going to oppose this effort at this point. It does mean that we are going to work to make the best lemonade out of the lemons that have been placed before us. Let no one with any interest in or connection to the blindness field make the mistake of believing that we have weakened our resolve. Our resources, strengths, and convictions have not diminished. Our fighting skills are still as sharp as they have ever been. Some may be tempted to believe that we were caught off guard and that by the time we discovered the plan we were unable to mount a good fight. Nothing could be further from the truth. In this case we have made the decision not to fight. That does not mean that we will make the same decision should our library services or rehabilitation services come under threat.
I will conclude this article with some interesting facts about the Ohio State School for the Blind. In 1837 the state purchased a large house on Parsons Avenue to begin educating blind students. In 1838 the first school was built. This school housed sixty students.
In 1867 the second school was built. Once again the school was built on Parsons Avenue. This school housed 425 students. This is what many now refer to as the old school. The school now located at 5220 North High Street was built in 1953. The gymnasium was not added until after the school was occupied. The swimming pool was built in the 1970’s.
Although I have been to the Parsons Avenue location, I have never really thought of it as a school for anything other than historical purposes. Paul Dressell for one has been a student at both schools. It is quite possible that he will see a third Ohio State School for the Blind during his lifetime.

The airplane began to creep down the runway. I sat rigidly, gazing out the window and hoping for a safe flight. Little did I realize that I was about to embark on one of the most exciting episodes of my life.
My story really begins long before this, on a night in March when many events were set in motion. My mom spent that night sleeplessly tossing and turning, worrying about my future. I was a junior in high school and was just beginning to look into possible colleges, yet I was utterly unprepared for any college experience. When, and where, and how could I find the skills I needed? At last the idea of a school for the blind occurred to her. The next morning she asked me what I would think of attending a school for the blind. This was not a new topic of discussion between us; I knew that I was limited in many ways. Never having learned even to cross an intersection, I was totally inadequate in travel, and I had never really worked with computers. I quickly decided that a school for the blind could be the answer I was looking for. Since I needed blindness skills only, and since my training could not interfere with my high school education, I had to find a summer program which concentrated solely on blindness training. Mom suggested that we look into some NFB centers that she had heard of, for we could be sure of finding people there who shared our philosophy of blindness and who would give me the right kind of training. To our delight, we discovered that all three centers had the type of program we wanted. Barbara Pierce has always been a source of wisdom for me on all issues related to blindness, so I called her to ask her advice about which center I should choose. After assuring me that training was a wonderful idea, she said that all three of the centers were fantastic and that I should call them for information and make my own choice. This I did, contacting all of the centers’ directors and finding out as much as I could about the programs. While all of them sounded very interesting, BLIND, Inc.’s College Prep/Life Skills class attracted my attention. Since college preparation was my main purpose in seeking training, I decided that BLIND, Inc., was ideally suited to meet my needs.
When I called BLIND, Inc., to ask them for application information, they suggested that I contact the Bureau of Services for the Visually Impaired of Ohio (BSVI) about funding for the program. They encouraged me to apply to the center in the meantime, saying that I could let them know about the funding later.
While I appreciated their kind advice, I was wary of becoming involved with an agency that I knew nothing about. Once more I called Mrs. Pierce for her advice. She soon explained to me the purpose of BSVI—to assist blind people to gain employment—its buy-Ohio policy, my right to make an informed choice about services and service providers, and my need to be approved for services. She also prepared me for the length and difficulty of the undertaking, especially if we had to appeal an unfavorable decision.
Armed with this new information, I called BSVI and asked to speak with a counselor. The counselor listened as I described my needs and desires and then set an appointment when we could discuss these things in person. In the interval I applied and was accepted to BLIND, Inc. Nothing remained now except to learn whether BSVI would fund my training. When the day of the appointment arrived, my parents went with me to the meeting. The counselor began by asking the usual questions—how had I been educated, what was my level of blindness skills, and what were my goals and desires in coming to BSVI? She explained that any services I received would have to be part of an IPE (an Individualized Plan for Employment). I would have to set a vocational goal and show how blindness training fit with that goal before I could receive any funding. Also, because of BSVI’s Buy-Ohio policy, I would have to demonstrate that BLIND, Inc., could help me reach my vocational goal in ways that no in-state program could match.
Few sixteen-year-olds really know what they want to do with their life, and I was no exception. I was strongly opposed to being channeled into a vocation too early, instead of allowing events and college experience to guide me naturally into the right form of employment. Yet I needed the training, so I agreed to try to designate a possible future career. My counselor then told me that I had been approved for services and assured me that she would do everything in her power to help me get funding for training. She also asked me to compile a document listing my reasons for choosing BLIND, Inc., instead of an Ohio program such as that conducted by the Cleveland Sight Center (CSC).
Returning home, we immediately put together the required document; explaining that BLIND, Inc., could give me sleepshade training, blind instructors as role models, apartment-living experience, and preparation for interacting with college professors and fellow students. After waiting a couple of weeks without any response from my counselor, we finally contacted her for feedback. To our dismay we learned that what we had sent was insufficient. She now asked us to give her a point-by-point comparison of BLIND, Inc.’s program with an Ohio program like the CSC’s new summer program. Excitedly she described this new program and urged us to research it in detail.
I was somewhat shaken, but I began at once to call the directors of both centers, collecting as much information as I could. Each phone call only confirmed more clearly my first conclusion: the CSC program could not meet my training needs. We laid this out in a letter, especially stressing the sleepshade training. This type of training allows students to learn alternative blindness techniques which make it possible for them to function independently and safely, regardless of further vision loss. This training is also helpful when a student has just enough vision to be dangerous when attempting to use it for traveling. I fall into both these categories. The director of CSC’s summer program told me that he did not believe in sleepshades. Furthermore, only three of CSC’s thirteen instructors are blind, and I was told that a travel instructor must be sighted to tell me how to move in my environment. At BLIND, Inc., seven of the nine instructors, including the travel instructor, are blind. Even in areas such as recreation and apartment life I found that BLIND, Inc.’s program was challenging and encouraged total independence, while CSC’s was unexciting and encouraged reliance on semi-functional vision.
Shortly after I sent this letter, BLIND, Inc., contacted me to tell me that they had to know within two weeks whether I could come that summer. Not being able to reach my counselor, I was referred to her supervisor, to whom I explained the new urgency of my situation. The supervisor told me that we would have to write an IPE and provide a cost analysis of the two programs before anything else could be done. This was alarming, since writing an IPE can take weeks, but I sent through the cost analysis immediately. I noticed that BLIND, Inc.’s eight-week program cost two hundred dollars less than CSC’s six-week program. Since my counselor had suggested BSVI might cover the equivalent of an Ohio program in funding BLIND, Inc., this was highly encouraging.
Two days later my counselor called me. Excitedly she told me that I had been approved for 100% funding of the BLIND, Inc., program, and she did not mention the IPE. Gratefully I thanked her for the wonderful news, thrilled that BSVI had come through with the funding just in time.
One month later, after much happy anticipation and preparation, I was saying good bye to my parents and boarding a Minneapolis-bound plane. I had not flown since I was a little girl, and because of my close friendships with my siblings, I had never spent even one night without someone from my family. Perhaps these were the causes of my nervousness as I sat looking out the tiny window. Yet we landed in Minneapolis without the slightest incident. After sitting in the gate for a long time, waiting for someone from BLIND, Inc., to come and get me, I at last called the center to find out where my escort was. They told me that someone was waiting for me at baggage claim. After another long wait I secured one of the airline staff to accompany me downstairs. There I met Dick Davis, the assistant director of BLIND, Inc., who drove me to the center and gave me what felt like a whirlwind tour of its lower floor. Then he took me to my apartment, giving me a long, terribly confusing explanation of the route the students took to school. Not until he had dropped me off at my apartment did I begin to feel at home, as I unpacked and made friends with my roommate.
My impressions during those first few days are a whirl of activity and directions, most of which I did not comprehend. Minneapolis was like a vast labyrinth of streets, names, and routes. The buses seemed terrible to me. It was like a strange game where I had to leap on and off at exactly the right instant or be sucked into the heart of the labyrinth.
Still, from the first day that I began my training, I fell in love with the center. It is difficult to say what caused me to feel this way. Perhaps it was the practical new skills I was learning daily, which were revolutionizing my ability, or perhaps it was the novelty and challenge, yet I found myself enjoying the experience immensely. Intermingled with this enjoyment was the incredible amount of work that I was doing. I had not realized just how much I didn’t know until I arrived at the center, and I wanted to learn as much as I could in the short time I had. When the staff saw my hunger to learn, they pushed me at a faster pace, doing everything in their power to assist me. Their efforts were undoubtedly what allowed me to accomplish as much as I did.
My instructors were willing to sacrifice even their own personal time to give me the training I needed. For instance, the shop instructor stayed for hours overtime, helping me to finish a beautiful Norwegian-style bookcase. On another occasion, my last day at the center, I reminded my computer instructor that I had not learned how to do email, and I had only an hour and a half left. He immediately dropped what he was doing, leaving his break early, and taught me how to work my email account. The staff’s impact went far beyond teaching me skills, however. They completely changed my ideas of independence and blindness. Before coming to the center, I had unconsciously set limits for my independence, but the daily exposure to blind instructors who lived truly independently shattered those limits, an experience that I could never have gotten from sighted instructors. Sometimes it was the little things, like watching the guys run down the stairs, that affected me most. They inspired me to learn to live independently as well, and I eagerly accepted the challenge.
My training was not free of difficulties. One day, after I had spent two miserable hours wandering around on what should have been a one-hour assignment, I shared my frustrations with my travel instructor. To my shock, he replied, “Well, that’s wonderful!” As I stared at him in disbelief, he explained, “I like all my students to have at least half a dozen similar experiences before they graduate. Look at what happened; you got lost, but you used your knowledge and creativity to get unlost. That’s really valuable.” From this I realized that part of BLIND, Inc.’s training philosophy was that experience, even if it is failure, is the best teacher for life.
Interspersed with the work and the challenges of my training was a lot of laughter and fun. One day the entire school went out to a water park. One of the rides there was an alpine slide, a long concrete and fiberglass track which ran in a series of curves and drops down a small mountain, down which one rode on a small sled on wheels. When we arrived at the top of the hill after a long ski lift, we ran across the platform and grabbed our sleds. I was wearing my sleepshades, since this was a school recreation event, and I could only hear the others whiz down the track into silence. Then I was off, nervously holding my brake at half-throttle. After two fun and uneventful rides, I decided to make the third one worth remembering. I shot down the slide, going as fast as I dared and careening around curves at a thrilling speed. Suddenly I felt the ground level beneath me, and I pushed the speed full-throttle. My friends turned around just in time to see me come shooting down the last stretch of track and collide into the all-too-solid safety cushion at the track’s end. For one breathtaking moment I was airborne. Then I landed once more on my sled, amid the others’ hysterical peals of laughter.
The climax of my training came during my last week at the center, when I was given a drop-off. The drop-off, to me, is really a symbol of the entire BLIND, Inc., philosophy, a philosophy which says that students should be placed in lifelike situations where they learn problem-solving skills, build confidence, and discover new blindness techniques, also known as the “structured-discovery method.” BLIND, Inc., does not believe in making things artificially easy for its students; instead it gives them a wide base of practical knowledge and experiences that they will draw upon for the rest of their lives.
Thus one morning I found myself standing on an unknown street corner in Minneapolis. I was allowed only one question to get me back to the school, and it could not be, “Where am I?” or “What street is this?” Quickly I began to walk back towards the nearest busy street and located a bus stop. When the bus arrived, I rode it for a short time, figured out where I was and walked the rest of the way back to the center.
Still buoyed by the extra confidence which this success gave me, I left the center at the end of the week, but I did not leave as the same person who had arrived. I carried away with me a host of new skills. From not knowing how to cross an intersection, I had progressed to my first drop-off. From knowing nothing of computers, I had mastered the basics of Word and been introduced to the Web. Finally, I had discovered my love for woodworking, improved my Braille speed, and learned new cooking techniques.
Supporting me in these new skills was a valuable network of friends and instructors. Such resources should not be underestimated since difficulty and discouragement do not cease after graduation from a NFB center. As I discovered, it is all too easy to begin to slowly let go of one’s independence without the support and challenge of others.
By the time I left the center, my confidence and freedom had been transformed. This time, when my plane landed, I walked alone from the gate to baggage claim to meet my parents. I carried with me a new zest for the unknown and the challenging. Even my perception of myself as a person who is blind had changed. The burdening belief that my blindness was a weakness was gone, replaced by a healthy knowledge of my ability and independence. Finally, I left the center with the living knowledge that whatever my dreams are, whatever God’s calling is upon my life, I can pursue those dreams and that calling unhindered by my blindness.

Those who have used NFB-NEWSLINE consistently over the past several months have probably noticed an announcement from time to time asking us to help minimize NEWSLINE's phone bill.
It has always been a good idea to help the Federation by using local numbers or certain long-distance numbers to call NEWSLINE. But it is especially important for us to do so at this time. For several years the National Federation of the Blind was able to secure federal funds which were applied to the payment of telecommunications costs. These earmarked funds were never a single legislative item. Rather they came in the form of riders to other legislation which passed in Congress. This did not occur in 2006. Consequently, this year no federal money is available to assist the Federation in the payment of the telecommunications costs associated with NEWSLINE.
How can you help the Federation hold down expenses? The easiest way to assist us in this matter is to use a local NEWSLINE number. Many area codes have a phone number which can be used to call NEWSLINE. For example, the NEWSLINE local phone number in the 614 area code, which serves Franklin County, is 448-1673. If you want to learn your local NEWSLINE number, assuming that you have one, call the National Federation of the Blind toll-free at (866) 504-7300. The national office will provide your local number as long as there is one in your area. If you do not have a local number, you can dial the toll-free number, (888) 882-1629, to access NEWSLINE.
If your primary telephone is a cellular phone or if you use a cellular phone to call NEWSLINE, your charges will always be the same, regardless of the telephone number you use. Cellular plans provide a specific amount of time you can use your phone each month. For example, a person may pay $50 a month for 500 minutes that can be used any time to call anywhere. If you use a cellular phone to call a toll-free number and talk for ten minutes, you are charged for ten minutes of telephone time, just as you would be if you called a local number or a friend who lives across the country. We encourage you to use (614) 448-1673, which will cost the Federation only the insignificant flat rate of any local call. You may use your cellular phone to dial this number from anywhere in the United States, and your charges will remain the same as they are from your local area code. Moreover, if your package allows you to make calls free after 9:00 p.m. and on weekends, calling the 614 NEWSLINE number during those hours will be inexpensive to the NFB and cost you nothing.
If you have a telephone package for your landline that permits you to make an unlimited number of long-distance calls at no charge and you do not have a local number to call NEWSLINE, you should also use the 614 number. If you already have or soon get a local NEWSLINE number, you may find it faster to use that number so that you do not have to dial an area code.
If you are a regular user of NFB-NEWSLINE, you can look forward to many new and exciting advances such as new newspapers, television listings, and more. If you have yet to use NFB-NEWSLINE, call 1-866-391-0841 to sign up for the service. We will be glad to take your application over the phone. If you have a computer and would like to sign up online, you can do it by clicking on www.nfbohio.org or www.nfb.org. Give NEWSLINE a try—you'll like it.

Spring is finally here, and I am already looking forward to the summer and the national convention in Atlanta. But my excitement is also building for the fall and our state convention in Cincinnati. Let me put your mind at rest. I am not sitting around wishing my life away. I am far too busy for that. But I do get excited about our conventions, and this year’s state convention is going to be a good one.
We will be at the Holiday Inn Eastgate just outside of Cincinnati. Many of you will remember that we were there in 2000 for our joint convention with the Kentucky affiliate. This year the convention will take place from November 2 to 4 at the Holiday Inn Eastgate, 4501 Eastgate Boulevard, Cincinnati, OH 45245.
Our room rates are $67 a night plus tax. You can make your reservations by calling Intercontinental Hotel reservations at (800) 465-4329 or our hotel directly (513) 752-4400. I urge you to contact the hotel directly if at all possible.
Here are some important things to remember when planning for the convention. The board of directors will meet on Friday morning and not Thursday night this year, though, if you are planning to attend that meeting, you had better plan to come in Thursday night unless you live in Cincinnati. Our block of rooms will be released after October 17. You cannot be guaranteed our excellent room rate after that date. Please do not wait until after our block has been released to make your reservations. Inevitably one or two people do this each year, expecting someone to rescue them. Please don’t make me have to deal with that this year.
We offer an opportunity to preregister for the convention because it makes life easier when having to provide the hotel with meal counts and talk with them about setup. Therefore we provide you with a little savings for preregistering. Again I urge you to take seriously the deadline for preregistering that will be announced in the next newsletter. We are often asked to give someone the discounts because they really intended to get their registration materials in by the deadline, but they just couldn’t get their act together. We give everyone plenty of time, so such requests fall on deaf ears.
A much more complete article about the state convention will appear in the next issue of the newsletter. I will begin working on this shortly after coming back from our national convention in Atlanta where I hope to see many of you. I look forward to seeing many more of you in Cincinnati this fall.