[ Back ] [ Next ] [Home]

Braille Monitor - August/September 2000 Edition

NFB Awards 2000

From the Editor: National Federation of the Blind awards are not bestowed lightly. If an appropriate recipient does not emerge from the pool of candidates for a particular award, it is simply not presented. At this year's convention six presentations were made. The first three took place during the Board of Directors meeting Tuesday morning, July 4. The first of these was presented by Steve Benson, who chairs the Blind Educator of the Year Selection Committee. This is what he said:

Steve Benson presents the Blind Educator of the Year Award to Priscilla McKinley

The Blind Educator of the Year Award

Jacobus tenBroek was a constitutional scholar, award-winning author, outspoken and eminent authority on social welfare and civil rights, and founder of the National Federation of the Blind. He earned five academic degrees, served as chairman of the speech department at the University of California, and chaired the California Social Welfare Board.

Dr. tenBroek's prowess as a teacher on the Berkeley campus was renowned among students and faculty alike. We, though, are more familiar with his consummate teaching skills beyond the university campus. He taught blind people and the public that blind people have the same rights of citizenship as sighted people, that we have the same desires and aspirations as everybody else, and that we have the same right to expect to achieve those aspirations.

Kenneth Jernigan too was a consummate teacher. He taught many of us, firsthand, how to live and fulfill our dreams. He taught all of us how to build the strongest organization of the blind in the world. The immediacy of Dr. Jernigan's teaching is palpable for those of us who worked beside him; and the impact of his lessons has left an indelible imprint on this organization and on the public mind.

Now President Maurer adds his knowledge and spirit to lessons taught and learned as we forge ahead in the full current of life as equals in this society. Each of these leaders has taught; each has defined a standard toward which we strive.

It is the task of the Blind Educator of the Year Award Committee (Judy Sanders, Adelmo Vigil, Ramona Walhof, and me) to select an award recipient who emulates tenBroek, Jernigan, and Maurer in Federation terms and who distinguishes him- or herself in the competitive classroom.

The Committee has once again selected a winner whose nominating letters indicate the highest regard among teaching colleagues and highest praise from students.

One nominating letter says: "She enters a classroom prepared for discussion and debate." Another says: "She has exemplified exactly the qualities of character and academic achievement that the Blind Educator of the Year Award recognizes." A third letter says: "She is an inspiration to the academic community and to the blind of the state in which she lives and works." Yet another says: "She has taught advanced writing courses rarely assigned to graduate students."

The 2000 recipient of the Blind Educator of the Year Award teaches in the manner and style of tenBroek, Jernigan, and Maurer. She serves on a state affiliate board of directors. She has organized an active and energetic chapter. Very early on a recent Saturday morning, I was tuning across the radio dial and heard a public service announcement for her chapter's meeting.

Fellow Federationists, the winner of the 2000 Blind Educator of the Year Award is Priscilla McKinley.

While Priscilla is making her way to the platform, I will tell you that she is President of the Old Capital Chapter in Iowa City, Iowa, and she is First Vice President of the NFB teachers division. Priscilla won a national scholarship in 1996, and she was a tenBroek Fellow in 1998. She earned a master of fine arts degree from the very prestigious University of Iowa Writers Workshop in nonfiction writing. She has published essays, and she is an adjunct professor of English at the University of Iowa. One colleague describes Priscilla's classes as fun and engaging.

Priscilla, here is a check in the amount of five hundred dollars and a plaque that reads:

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

HONORS

PRISCILLA MCKINLEY

DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF BLIND CHILDREN

FOR YOUR SKILLS IN TEACHING BRAILLE

AND THE USE OF THE WHITE CANE

FOR GENEROUSLY DEVOTING

EXTRA TIME TO MEET THE NEEDS

OF YOUR STUDENTS AND FOR INSPIRING

YOUR STUDENTS TO PERFORM BEYOND

THEIR EXPECTATIONS.

YOU CHAMPION OUR MOVEMENT,

YOU STRENGTHEN OUR HOPES,

YOU SHARE OUR DREAMS.

Congratulations! Here is Priscilla McKinley.

My mom was an English teacher, and my dad was a poet who happened to farm, and when I went off to the University of Iowa a long time ago, it was natural for me to go into teaching. But when I got the application in the mail, I didn't do the natural thing; I wrote down that I wanted to go into pre-med. Of course, after my first course in advanced chemistry, I decided to be natural and to go into teaching, which is where my heart was. Then I lost my sight, and people told me that I couldn't teach. Worse than that, I told myself that I couldn't teach.

Then I met the National Federation of the Blind. I met people like Dr. Jernigan, Allen Harris, Carla McQuillan, etc., and they all taught me the most important lesson I've ever learned in life, which is that it is respectable to be blind. Thanks. [applause]

John Miller presents the Leonard Euler Award to Chris Weaver and the MAVIS Project.

The Leonard Euler Award

John Miller, President of the Science and Engineering Division, came to the podium a little later during the Board meeting to present a new award intended to honor those who smooth the way for blind students and scientists and engineers to do their work. This is what he said:

We are doing something this year, and I'm very excited about it. I would like to thank the Committee members for this award-- Brian Buhrow, Chairman of the Research and Development Committee; Dr. Michael Gosse; and Robert Jacquiss. They created the Leonard Euler Award for scientific excellence, the purpose of which is to recognize those who help blind people succeed in science and engineering and to make of them an example for other vendors to develop products and solutions as outstanding as the ones acknowledged here. In the year 2001 Brian Buhrow will bechairing the selection committee, so get your nominations in if you see a product that is good at helping blind people do math. If you know a high school student and something that is getting him or her a necessary education in scientific matters, then get that nomination in to Brian Buhrow.

Leonard Euler was born in the 1700's, and by the time he was twenty-eight, he had lost his sight in one eye. This blind mathematician soon lost the sight in his other eye and became totally blind for the rest of his life. As his blindness was coming upon him, he prepared for his future career as a blind person. He learned to write his mathematical formulas on a slate so that he could communicate with others without using any vision. Also he used a reader and dictated the many books and papers that would soon be published. He lived a full, balanced life. He was an outstanding parent and, as a blind person, was a more prolific mathematician and publisher than he had been as a sighted young man.

When Catherine the Great of Russia enticed him to come to Russia and serve in the court there, the accommodations she offered him and his thirteen children and wife were a cook and a house; and he was glad to have the accommodations. He was born in 1707 and died in 1783. He authored 886 books and papers. His name appears in a formula in every branch of classical mathematics, the field of engineering, and business. Euler is famous for the notation of the natural logarithms (the letter "E" representing the base is for his name), the notation i for the square of negative one, the notation of the mathematical function Y = F(X), and a formula about closed polyhedrons--the number of faces plus the vertices minus the number of edges equals two. I checked it out this morning. It holds for a pyramid and for a cube.

The winner this year and the first recipient of the Leonard Euler Award for Scientific Excellence is the MAVIS Project. Here as its recipient is Chris Weaver. [applause]

While Chris is coming forward, let me tell you about this award. Dr. Jernigan said that with training and opportunity blind people can compete on terms of equality with the sighted. The MAVIS Project is making this possible for us in science. MAVIS has created software for an off-the-shelf program called Scientific Notebook 3.0, in which a sighted person can typeset mathematics just the way it would look in a published book, knowing nothing about Braille or a blind person's need to read something mathematical, and can use the MAVIS software to have the material appear in Nemeth Braille code. Not stopping there, this program is now a front-end product of Duxbury Systems. It is in Alpha test and will soon be available commercially to all blind people.

But better still, as an example, Chris himself has been an active part of the National Federation of the Blind and the Science Division, attending our conventions, giving freely of his advice and support, showing the kind of mentorship and learning that we want between vendors and the blind.

Let me read to you the actual award and mention that the National Federation of the Blind brought Chris to this convention, and we have a check for $300 for the MAVIS Project. The award has the logo of the National Federation of the Blind and the text etched on a glass disk. The glass is held in place by two marble arcs forming the base and two isosceles triangles holding the piece of glass in a vertical position. The text reads:

THE LEONARD EULER AWARD OF SCIENTIFIC EXCELLENCE

SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DIVISION

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

THE MAVIS PROJECT

NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY

IN RECOGNITION

OF ITS ONGOING WORK

FOR USING INNOVATIVE TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES

MAKING MATHEMATIC AND SCIENTIFIC BRAILLE

AVAILABLE TO BLIND STUDENTS AND PROFESSIONALS.

JULY 4, 2000

Chris, there is your trophy, and here is your check for $300 from the National Federation of the Blind.

Chris Weaver: Thank you very much, National Federation of the Blind. I just want to point out that this is not a one-man effort. We have roughly ten people working on our team, including our principal investigator Arthur Karshmer, Gopal Gupta, Sandy Geiger, Kelly Burma, Haifeng Guo, Jose Mendez Mateos, and a fellow named Jack Medd who is a volunteer from MacKichan Software, who wrote most of the code for the MAVIS Scientific Notebook to Nemeth code to convert it.

I just want to thank the NFB for the influence that you had on our project. My colleague Sandy Geiger and I got started when we had a blind student that came to our classroom, as you may have read in the June Braille Monitor. When we got started, we had good intentions, and I think that, as a result of our good intentions, we were very much in danger of becoming an organization that was custodial, just like all the other organizations out there. Then in stepped the Federation, and thanks to all of your input, we are developing all of our software to make sure that blind people have exactly the same kinds of opportunities in science and mathematics that all of their sighted peers do. [applause]

Thank you very much for your support.

Sharon Maneki reads the text of the plaque while Marlene Culpepper displays the award.

Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award

Shortly before the close of the Board meeting, Sharon Maneki, who chairs the Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award Committee, made her committee's presentation. Here is the way it happened:

Good morning, Mr. President and fellow Federationists. The goals of the National Federation of the Blind, as we know, are security, equality, and opportunity. The best vehicle to achieve these goals is through education. So in the National Federation of the Blind we have created the Distinguished Educator of Blind Children Award. This year's recipient is someone who is a neighbor. She didn't have as far as some of us to come to this convention because she is from Georgia--Columbus, Georgia, as a matter of fact.

She sees to it that her students travel miles because she makes sure that they have what they need. She was nominated by parents: Donna and Larry Jones. Their daughter Heather isblind, and some of us heard Heather at the parents' seminar on Sunday. I just want to read a little bit of what Donna and Larry had to say about the recipient, and you will understand why the Committee of Jacqueline Billey, Allen Harris, Joyce Scanlan, and me chose her. She is a teacher who is adamant in her belief that proficiency in Braille is essential to the literacy of the blind.

She encourages and expects her students to read daily and provides a vast array of reading materials. Our school's Braille library has over three hundred Braille books and includes bestsellers such as the Harry Potter series. As the parent of a blind child, I cannot express in words what it means for my child to be able to choose a book that she is interested in and not to have to settle only for what is available. Even though the teacher has a limited budget, you will never hear one of her students remark, "I don't have anything good to read." She constantly amazes us in her never-ending search for new resources to purchase new books.

This year's recipient is Marlene Culpepper from the Miscogee County Public Schools. [applause] First of all, Marlene, I have a check for you, and I will take a minute to read the award:

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

HONORS

MARLENE CULPEPPER

DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR OF BLIND CHILDREN

FOR YOUR SKILL IN TEACHING BRAILLE

AND THE USE OF THE WHITE CANE,

FOR GENEROUSLY DEVOTING

EXTRA TIME TO MEET THE NEEDS

OF YOUR STUDENTS,

AND FOR INSPIRING YOUR STUDENTS

TO PERFORM BEYOND THEIR EXPECTATIONS.

YOU CHAMPION OUR MOVEMENT.

YOU STRENGTHEN OUR HOPES.

YOU SHARE OUR DREAMS. Congratulations.

Marlene Culpepper: Thank you, Federationists. I am honored to be here and receive this award. However, I don't feel that I do anything more than what a good teacher of blind children should do. And that is, I hope, to inspire my children to dream, and I hope to give them the tools with which to do it and the ability to use them. Thank you.

Don and Betty Capps look on while Congressman Ehrlich holds the plaque and Allen Harris addresses the audience.

The Newel Perry Award

Fairly soon after dinner and early in the banquet proceedings, Congressman Robert Ehrlich made his way from his seat at the head table to Dr. Maurer to explain that he had a plane to catch and to say good-bye. President Maurer asked him to be seated for just a moment more and told Allen Harris to make the presentation of the Newel Perry Award. Here it is:

Newel Perry was a pioneer long before the National Federation of the Blind was born in 1940. Newel Perry was a person who at the age of eight became blind and was sent off to the School for the Blind in Berkeley, California, where he began his education and where he stayed throughout the rest of grammar school, middle school, and high school. Newel Perry was a brilliant student and did extremely well. Upon graduation from the Berkeley California School for the Blind, Newel Perry enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley to study mathematics, where he again excelled as a student. He was a scholar rarely paralleled by his colleagues at the time.

He continued through the four years of undergraduate work, receiving a baccalaureate degree from the University of California and at that point, with a bachelor's degree and being already of a reputation and notoriety, he was offered an opportunity to go to Europe, where he studied and eventually earned a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University in mathematics.

Although Dr. Perry was eminently qualified, although he was clearly a man renowned among mathematicians, he ended up in New York City tutoring children in rudimentary mathematics. Why? Newel Perry was blind. He applied to more than five hundred institutions of one kind and another to be a teacher and was turned down by all of them. He struggled and looked for work with impeccable credentials but could not find work. Newel Perry went back then after a time to the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, where he began teaching and tutoring children. Among the students that he encountered was Dr. Jacobus tenBroek, who at that time was not a doctor, but a student at the California School for the Blind.

Newel Perry stands for all that the Federation has come to believe and to understand. Newel Perry faced the problems that blind people had encountered throughout the centuries and through the decades on into the 1960's when he finally passed away in 1961.

It is our pleasure tonight to present the Newel Perry Award to a friend who has worked with us, who has been stalwart for us in a place where it matters, the United States Congress. Congressman Ehrlich, would you please join us at the podium?

Congressman Ehrlich is holding up the plaque so that you can take a look at it. It's a fine-looking plaque. On this plaque it says:

NEWEL PERRY AWARD

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

IN RECOGNITION OF COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP

AND OUTSTANDING SERVICE,

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

BESTOWS THE NEWEL PERRY AWARD UPON

THE HONORABLE ROBERT L. EHRLICH:

OUR COLLEAGUE; OUR FRIEND; OUR BROTHER

ON THE BARRICADES.

HE CHAMPIONS OUR PROGRESS;

HE STRENGTHENS OUR HOPES;

HE SHARES OUR DREAMS.

JULY 7, 2000

Robert Ehrlich: Thank you all very much. I have a plane to catch, and I just said goodbye to Marc. I said, "I'm leaving now for the airport," and he said, "No, you're not. Go sit down." So I had an idea maybe something was up, but that's the first I had insight that something would occur this evening. I have a question for you all. I know we do a lot of important things at this convention. We nominate our Presidential candidates in four days, and you all take a week: now that is serious work. I am very impressed.

I am very honored with this award. Some of you know that I have the office that President Kennedy had when he was in the House of Representatives. It's a very historic office, 315 Cannon House Office Building. This award will hang in that office in honor of you. I thank you all very much. I love what you do. I love your spirit; I'm proud to be associated with you. You are my friends. Godspeed, and thank you again.

Michael Gosse presents the Louis Braille Memorial Award to Michael Tobin

The Louis Braille Memorial Award

An award was presented at this year's banquet by the International Braille Research Center. Dr. Michael Gosse, the newly elected President of the IBRC, made the presentation. This is what he said:

The Louis Braille Memorial Award is given by the International Braille Research Center in recognition of past and continuing contributions to research for the advancement of Braille literacy. The recipient is nominated by the distinguished IBRC Council of Research Fellows and confirmed by the IBRC Board of Directors. This year's recipient is Dr. Michael Tobin.

Dr. Tobin graduated with honors from the University of London with a bachelor of arts. After obtaining his teaching certificate, he continued to a Ph.D. at the University of Birmingham. He later completed the rigorous requirements for the Doctor of Literature in education. Dr. Tobin currentlyserves as Professor of Special Education in Visual Disabilities at the University of Birmingham, where he is the director of the University Research Center for the Education of the Visually Handicapped. In addition to serving as the chairman of the IBRC Council of Research Fellows, he serves as a fellow of the British Psychological Society of Chartered Psychologists and the Association for the Education and Welfare of the Visually Handicapped. With over a hundred books, reports, and papers to his credit, Dr. Tobin first became addicted to Braille in the latter 1960's when he completed ground-breaking research in the teaching of Braille by touch to newly blinded adolescents and adults. Other research has included developing a Braille reading test to measure speed, accuracy, and comprehension and an experimental investigation of print and computer-based text and its decoding by visually impaired readers. He has numerous other research projects that are ongoing.

With these credentials Dr. Tobin certainly rises to the standards set forth for the Louis Braille Memorial Award. Dr. Tobin, it is my honor to present to you the Louis Braille Memorial Award, which consists of a scroll mounted on a plaque. The scroll reads:

THE INTERNATIONAL BRAILLE RESEARCH CENTER

LOUIS BRAILLE MEMORIAL AWARD

PRESENTED TO

DR. MICHAEL TOBIN

IN RECOGNITION

OF OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO RESEARCH

RELATING TO BRAILLE LITERACY AND EDUCATION OF THE BLIND

PRESENTED BY THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

JULY 7, 2000

In addition we have a true gold medallion, four ounces of gold that I've been carrying around all day, and I'm glad I'm getting rid of it. On the front is an image of Louis Braille, and on the back are the dates "1809 to 1852" and the words "Louis Braille medal." I present these to you, Dr. Tobin, and the microphone for any comments you would like to make.

What an evening this has been--something totally out of my experience. I'd just like you to think for a moment of some of the great and powerful inventions made by mankind: the combustion engine, radio, television--you name it--herbicides and insecticides--all powerful inventions, but every one of them has a down side to it, some deleterious effect. I suggest to you that there has been one great, powerful invention by mankind that has no down side to it, that has no deleterious effects. It was made by Louis Braille. Braille, I suggest to you, is one of the great, powerful, epoch-making inventions of mankind. I'm enormously proud to receive this medal, particularly since the first recipient was Dr. Emerson Foulke. He was a great friend and teacher of all of us who do research. I'm sure nothing could be better for me than to follow in the footsteps of Emerson.

I shall be retiring next year. I should have done it last year, but the University wanted to keep me on because we have a research exercise whereby the University gets money depending on the quality of its research. My bosses want me to stay on until this research assessment is over. But I want to say that tonight receiving this gold medal is the peak, the summit of my academic and research career, and I thank you most sincerely. [applause] Ramona Walhof reads the text of the tenBroek Award while Tim Cranmer displays the plaque.]

Ramona Walhof reads the text of the tenBroek Award while Tim Cranmer displays the plaque.

The Jacobus tenBroek Award

Near the end of the banquet Ramona Walhof, who chairs the Jacobus tenBroek Award Committee, came to the microphone for a presentation. This is what she said:

The National Federation of the Blind voted in 1974 to establish an award in memory of our beloved founder, Dr. Jacobus tenBroek. This award would be presented to leaders of the organization as often as there is someone who deserves special national recognition for outstanding contributions to the blind and to the NFB. Considering leaders for this award is a delightful assignment for the committee, which consists of Jim Omvig, Joyce Scanlan, and me. One of the things the Federation can be proud of is the quality and the number of its leaders who take on more and more responsibilities with increased success. The tenBroek award has been given sixteen times to individuals from thirteen states. This year we have chosen a gentleman whose contributions to the Federation and to the blind of the country are as great as any who has ever received the award. The work of this man has affected every blind person in the room tonight and everyone who is not here as well.

Our tenBroek award recipient directed a state rehabilitation agency for the blind for seventeen years, but that is not what he is best known for. He has worked in various capacities to improve production and circulation of Braille, to improve technology for the blind, to improve employment for the blind; and he has written numerous articles and presented many speeches on these matters. Many of you first met Tim Cranmer's work when you purchased your first abacus, the Cranmer abacus.

But let's go back to the early years. Tim Cranmer was enrolled at the Kentucky School for the Blind from 1933 to 1938. At age fourteen he decided he could learn more productively by dropping out of school (we don't recommend it) and borrowing books in Braille from Hadley School for the Blind and other libraries. He was fascinated with chemistry, physics, electricity, and math. At age sixteen he figured out how to solidify plastic. For a number of years he made solid plastic jewelry: earrings, brooches, pendants, and rings. I hope some of these items are still around; they must be very interesting. His jewelry customers were blind vendors and local stores. At age eighteen Tim Cranmer was hired by Kentucky Industries for the Blind, but this job was short-lived. When he was dismissed, he said, if he ever worked for that shop again, he would run it. Later he did just that.

Tim worked for ten years as a piano technician and earned about a $1.50 a day. In 1948 he married Thelma, and the couple have one daughter, Linda. In 1952 Tim Cranmer went to work for the Kentucky Division of Rehabilitation Services for the Blind as a counselor and placement specialist. Ten years later he was named Director of the Division of Rehabilitation Services for the Blind in Kentucky. At that time Kentucky Industries for the Blind was a part of the division. In 1979, after Tim Cranmer and other Federationists worked hard to separate Kentucky Rehabilitation for the Blind out into a separate department, Tim Cranmer became Director of Technology instead of director of the agency.

Also in 1979 Tim Cranmer became Dr. Cranmer when the University of Louisville conferred on him the honorary degree doctor of applied sciences. The National Rehabilitation Association honored Dr. Cranmer with its Outstanding Service award. Boston University presented Dr. Cranmer with its Neil Pike Award for Distinguished Service. And the NFB of Kentucky honored Dr. Cranmer with its Susan B. Rarick Award for Outstanding Service to Blind Men and Women.

Dr. Cranmer has served as First Vice President of the NFB of Kentucky for more years than I know. A soft-spoken man, his voice rings loud in affairs affecting the blind in Kentucky and around the world. Dr. Cranmer has done considerable grant writing with good success. Since his retirement from rehabilitation in 1982 from the Kentucky Department of the Blind, he has served as President of the Braille Research Center and has taken primary responsibility for funding that operation. This year Dr. Cranmer has been a principal leader in the Federation's Capital Campaign. In fact Tim Cranmer has been principally responsible for requesting and guiding the donation of $300,000 from Mrs. Emerson Foulke. He has worked closely with others who have made generous gifts and donations as well.

What Dr. Cranmer is best known for, however, is his inventions. I have never before had the opportunity to list patents and inventions in the presentation of an award, but here are some of Dr. Cranmer's: he developed a vacuum-curing process for making costume jewelry out of plastic, which he sold himself. He invented the Cranmer Abacus, which was and is distributed by the American Printing House for the Blind. He modified the Perkins Brailler electronically for special uses. It was manufactured and distributed by Maryland Computer Products. He developed audio/tactile Braille displays for use with clocks, stopwatches, clinical system monitors, etc. He created a Braille font with tactile graphics for use with the Pixelmaster. He developed the Speaqualizer Speech-Access program. You will recognize this. He made major contributions to electronic circuitry and design for the Braille 'n Speak and the Braille Lite, which as we all know are distributed by Blazie Engineering and Freedom Scientific.

In addition to numerous articles in the Braille Monitor and the publication of the National Association to Promote the Use of Braille, Tim Cranmer has written significant scientific materials that have been published in the Braille Technical Press, Popular Electronics, and other magazines. He has made presentations at the International Congress on Technology for the Handicapped, the International Conference on Technology sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind, and a conference at Trace Research Center at the University of Wisconsin; and he has presented papers at all four U.S./Canada Conferences on Technology for the Blind sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind.

We are proud of you, Dr. Cranmer, and we are proud to have you as one of us. We are proud of your work and your spirit. We give you the Jacobus tenBroek Award tonight with love and pride. Now I have a plaque for you, which you can hold up. It reads:

JACOBUS TENBROEK AWARD

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

PRESENTED TO

TIM CRANMER

FOR YOUR DEDICATION, SACRIFICE, AND COMMITMENT

ON BEHALF OF THE BLIND OF THE NATION.

YOUR CONTRIBUTION IS NOT MEASURED IN STEPS,

BUT IN MILES, NOT BY INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCES,

BUT BY YOUR IMPACT ON THE LIVES OF THE BLIND OF THE NATION.

WHENEVER WE HAVE ASKED, YOU HAVE ANSWERED.

WE CALL YOU OUR COLLEAGUE WITH RESPECT;

WE CALL YOU OUR FRIEND WITH LOVE.

JULY 7, 2000

Tim Cranmer: I would have much more to say if they had less. I want to say also that I owe an apology to Dr. Maurer. He called me this last week and asked me a few pointed questions about things I had done, and I said to myself, "He's preparing my obituary." [laughter] Dr. Maurer, I'm not as old as I'm going to be.

I thank you, but I also want to say that I have received many awards over the years, and nothing ever compares to the recognition that I get from my fellow Federationists. It has meant a life to me. I could not have been what I am without being a part of the Federation. Thank you so much.

[ Back ] [ Next ] [Home]