[Home-on-the-range] An article from www.kansas.com

[Dianne Hemphill]

Good morning all - Alight was at the NFB convention in Orlando this pastt July. Jack and I were just finalizing a purchase with Freedom Scientific when he said the table next to this, is the FBI's. I had mentioned earlier to him that I wondered why the FBI was here in the exhibit hall and had not been successful in locating their table thus far. It was nearly 5 PM, closing time for the hall and a young woman using a guide dog was leaving from behind her information table. I asked her if she was with the FBI and she said she was. We discussed what she did with them and that the FBI had had a table at the convention for several years posting  options for jobs...We got to talking about where we both were from and found out that we were both from Wichita...I then asked her name and she said Alight...I knew than that she was a former recipient of an NFB Kansas scholarship. I told her I had called her home a few years ago and talked to her dad about how she was doing at Rice University, Texas. He had said she was doing great...she laughed and said her dad was really proud of her. Another woman came up next to her introducing herself as a Special Agent with the FBI out of Tampa, Florida. She said Alight was doing great work with the FBI...I said that the fall state convention being held in Wichita was focused on employment. I wondered if there was anyway Alight might be able to present...she said we could make a written request and this might be possible- wouldn't that be great! Alysha then came to the Kansas affilitate the next afternoon and visited with myself, Tom and Donna- I'm thinking her degree was in Physics- very sharp cookie- hope we can work with her and the FBI on jobs that are none traditional for anyone, much less the blind. Dianne		
On Aug 7, 2011, at 11:25 PM, Floyd wrote:

> Floyd has sent you the following story:
> 
> Another sicess story from the NFB of Ks.
> 
> 
> Posted on Sunday, Aug. 07, 2011
> 
> Blind West High grad speaks at White House
> By ANNIE CALOVICH
> 
> Sighted people may not think they understand Alysha Jeans, blind from birth, but she seems to understand them all right. Jeans, a 2006 West High School graduate, got to speak at the White House last month at a celebration marking the 21st anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. She followed Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Tina Tchen, chief of staff for the first lady. And she told the audience of government officials and interns that there is a tremendous depth to people that doesn't always meet the eye.
> "I'm totally blind. I was born blind. And I said that I think a lot of people have never even met a person with a disability or interacted with them, so they don't understand the capabilities," Jeans said in a phone call from her home in Vienna, Va., recalling her speech.
> 
> She is 23 years old and one year into a job with the FBI in Quantico, Va., working in forensic audio analysis.
> 
> 
> Read More...
> 
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