by Sharon Lovering
The Sunday night opening session at this year’s convention was quite a sight to see. From the moment President Chris Gray banged the gavel to call the session to order, to the presentation of the colors and Ken Osborne’s excellent rendition of the national anthem, through Gray’s, Melanie Brunson’s and Carl Augusto’s reports, people were on the edges of their chairs, waiting for the magical moment when the awards would be presented.
Finally, that moment came. “One of the most moving parts of every ACB convention is the time that we can spend recognizing others, recognizing those among us who are the great contributors,” Gray said, “so great that we elect to give them awards. Tonight, to begin that process, I would like to introduce to you ... Nola Webb McKinney.”
McKinney took the podium microphone and greeted the audience. “This is a wonderful opportunity for me, and I thank Chris so very much to give it to me. As Melanie said, they dream big, make a difference, and I think all these people that I’m going to give awards to tonight have done just that: they’ve thought big, they’ve made a difference.”
She began with the Distinguished Service Award, which “can be given to either a blind person or a sighted person, and this year we’re starting with a sighted person from Tennessee. If Carol Edwards is in the audience, she will stand. She’s the one who nominated this person, and evidently a lot of you know her because she’s a volunteer. And what we would do without our volunteers? I don’t know, but evidently Dot Taylor has done a little more!” Raucous applause greeted this announcement.
Dot Taylor thanked the committee for the award, and Carol Edwards “for nominating me, and my two friends, Sue Buckley and Penny Pennington, for sending my eulogy to Nola so that they would know what I had done. I won’t have to do it when I die, y’all! And I started in this about 30 years ago, and it never occurred to me that blind people couldn’t do everything that I did and everybody else did. ... It’s just amazing, and I really, truly thank everybody for this award!”
McKinney came back to announce the second Distinguished Service Award “to a gentleman who is visually impaired ... [who] works in the Utah School for the Blind and for the Deaf ... and he has two blind children of his own.” The winner: Dr. Lee W. Robinson. Vicki Flake accepted the award on Robinson’s behalf.
Flake read a few comments Robinson sent. “I thank the committee for their consideration of the information which was sent to them. If I have been able to accomplish anything, it is because I have been taught by those who have gone before. ... I am also honored to be listed with those who have previously received awards. ... Thank you all very much.”
Next up was the George Card Award. The winner was nominated by Charlie Hodge and Ralph Sanders. “This gentleman has played a key role in the blind vendors,” McKinney said. “In Hawaii he has been a leader and a person to be proud of, to know. And ... when I called this gentleman and said, ‘You are going to receive the George Card Award,’ he said, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ That just shows the modesty and greatness of Warren Toyama.”
Toyama said, “Thank you very much. ... I would like to thank Charlie Hodge and Ralph Sanders for even thinking of nominating me. I would like at this time to thank especially my wife Julie for dealing with me and being patient all these years. ... We made a commitment to serve the blind of Hawaii for the rest of our lives, so ... we’re on track. ... Thank you very much.”
The Durward K. McDaniel Ambassador Award came up next. “This one is a thrill for me, and I’ll tell you why: because not only is this gentleman important to the state of Indiana, where he comes from, but he’s also important to the state of Ohio, where I used to come from. Because this gentleman has given me awards in the past when I worked for the Cleveland Sight Center, and has praised my work, and this is the first time I’m finally going to give it back to him and praise him! I'm talking about Bashir Masoodi.”
Masoodi complimented McKinney on her work. “I’m very thankful to you for this award, and I also want to share this. This is not an honor only for me, but also for American Council of the Blind of Indiana. Thank you for your support, your love, and your encouragement.”
McKinney reclaimed the microphone to inform the audience that “we’re going to save one award for tomorrow, and ... there’s some special reasons for it ... Right now I want to give the membership award! We’ve got one of the littlest states in the union ... and what did they do? Come up with the biggest increase in membership, and I think it’s great. And that award goes to Vermont!”
Tom Franks, president of the Vermont Council, thanked the committee and stated that the chapter has a goal to surpass some of the biggest affiliates in ACB.
McKinney left her audience with these words: “You too can be up here getting an award. The awards committee has some great plans for next year. One thing we’re going to do is give these awards a lot more publicity, so look for my articles in every magazine that you pick up, from Matilda Ziegler to Dialogue. ... I just want to get you people to write in more [nominations]. There’s a lot of deserving people out there, so let’s get them in! Let’s get them recognized!”
Next, Charlie Hodge presented the awards for the board of publications. The first award was the Vernon Henley Media Award. He gave a little background on Vernon Henley before presenting the award. The winner was Mark Ashby and Potomac Talking Book Services, for their recording of “People of Vision: A History of the American Council of the Blind.” “The publication of this work is truly a milestone for ACB,” Hodge stated. “And the fact that is has been produced in audio cassette form and is available for purchase, not just for loan ..., at the same rate as the soft cover print edition is truly an important milestone.”
Mark Ashby accepted the award on behalf of Potomac Talking Book Services. “Well, I do talk for a living, so I hope you don’t mind if I say a couple words up here,” he quipped. “I need to first of all thank Sharon and Penny who helped me out for a lot of the pronunciations of people’s names. ... I also want to recognize the Megiverns and thank them for providing me with a good month’s worth of work ... I also need to thank my wife Jennifer, who’s here with me, and she always listens to my stories of the ACB folks as well as my regular narrating work.”
Hodge returned to the lectern to present the Ned E. Freeman Award. “Today, the award is given for articles that are published in ‘The Braille Forum’ from April of one year through March of the next year, and for publications or articles that are printed in affiliate newsletters that are nominated by those affiliate newsletter editors for consideration for the award. And this year we have a wonderful award winner. She wrote an article in the November 2003 ‘Braille Forum’ that I hope many of you read and remember. It was a very poignant piece. ... ‘Through His Eyes,’ [written by Rebecca Shields].”
Shields said, “I’d like to thank those readers who ... [read] this article, and calling me and writing to the office ... Today I had an awesome opportunity. I met a family member of the gentleman who the article is about for the first time. We united today here at ACB ... She came to be present for the award and to take part in the significance of my receiving this.” Part of the award will be going into a memorial fund.
Charter Presentation
Not only were there awards, this year there was a charter presentation too. The recently re-formed Mountain State Council of the Blind (West Virginia) received a new charter. Jessie Rayl, president, accepted.
“On behalf of Mountain State Council of the Blind, I would like to express our thanks,” Rayl said. “This came together last year when a group of my friends had been talking about how we needed a group, we needed all kinds of things to happen in our state. And they’d been talking to me about it for ... about a year, two years. I finally told them to either get with me and make it happen or stop talking to me about it, because I didn’t want to hear about it anymore. We put it together in August; they voted me in in September as president, and we have been working really hard over the last year. We’ve accomplished six advocacy efforts; we are working with our city’s transit system to provide public access, and I’m hoping that this can be a model for the rest of the state, because we have better public transportation than we have had in the past 20 year.” The chapter is also working on accessible pedestrian signals, she noted.
Monday’s Surprise
Gray began the morning with awards, stating, “You may remember that last night there was one award which was not presented, and there’s a reason for that. ... Nola McKinney ... was not wanting last night to present the Robert S. Bray Award, waiting for a gentleman to come and assist with that process this morning.” He gave a bit of history regarding the award before introducing Steven Rothstein, executive director of the Perkins School for the Blind, to present the award.
Rothstein said, “It’s truly a pleasure to be here, particularly this year ... because this is Perkins School for the Blind’s 175th anniversary, and there are a lot of exciting things going on. ... But this morning it’s truly an honor to present the Robert S. Bray Award. Among the services that Perkins offers is we operate the braille and talking book library ... and we have a phenomenal staff ... This award is presented to the director of the library, and I’d like to ask Kim Charlson to come up.”
“I’m actually very surprised,” Charlson said. “The Massachusetts folks and Steve were very good at keeping a secret, and so was my husband. This really means a lot to me. ... Thank you so much for recognizing what I try to do to make information access a reality for people who are blind and visually impaired.”