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<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">
<DIV>Lorraine Rovig will soon end her employment with the NFB. She sent
this message out 10 days ago, and it is worth reading in order to get an idea of
how our movement affects people who join it, sighted and blind. Her
five-page message is pasted in below, and also attached.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">Lloyd
Rasmussen, Kensington, MD<BR>http://lras.home.sprynet.com</DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt tahoma">
<DIV><FONT size=3 face=Calibri></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=LRovig@nfb.org
href="mailto:LRovig@nfb.org">Rovig, Lorraine</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, May 05, 2014 9:13 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=fatos.floyd@nebraska.gov
href="mailto:fatos.floyd@nebraska.gov">Floyd, Fatos</A> ; <A
title=michael.b.floyd@gmail.com href="mailto:michael.b.floyd@gmail.com">Mike
Floyd</A> ; <A title=sahar.husseini@nebraska.gov
href="mailto:sahar.husseini@nebraska.gov">Husseini, Sahar</A> ; <A
title=newmanrl@cox.net href="mailto:newmanrl@cox.net">Robert Leslie Newman</A> ;
<A title=jaltman@neb.rr.com href="mailto:jaltman@neb.rr.com">Jeff Altman of
NE</A> ; <A title=beloos@neb.rr.com href="mailto:beloos@neb.rr.com">Barbara
Loos</A> ; <A title=amy.buresh74@gmail.com
href="mailto:amy.buresh74@gmail.com">State President, Nebraska</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A title=judyras@sprynet.com
href="mailto:judyras@sprynet.com">mailto:judyras@sprynet.com</A> ; <A
title=tbick3@msn.com href="mailto:tbick3@msn.com">mailto:tbick3@msn.com</A> ; <A
title=lras@sprynet.com href="mailto:lras@sprynet.com">'Lloyd Rasmussen'</A> ; <A
title=Blindhands@aol.com href="mailto:Blindhands@aol.com">'Joyce Kane'</A> ; <A
title=davidandloristayer@verizon.net
href="mailto:davidandloristayer@verizon.net">David Stayer</A> ; <A
title=nfbnj1@verizon.net href="mailto:nfbnj1@verizon.net">State President, New
Jersey</A> ; <A title=office@nfbny.org href="mailto:office@nfbny.org">State
President, New York</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Miss Rovig will be leaving the building, Hello
MN!</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline; FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri'; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; TEXT-DECORATION: none">
<DIV class=WordSection1>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I’ve sent my attached letter to
Dave Andrews, so I’m hoping it will hit some listservs and let people know who
may care. I sure don’t have the email contacts for all the friends I mostly just
meet at conventions.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Cordially,<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p></o:p> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Lorraine Rovig<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Assistant to Chairperson Patti Chang, Esq.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p></o:p> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'">Scholarship
Program<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'">NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE
BLIND<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'">200
East Wells Street at Jernigan Place<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial Black','sans-serif'">Baltimore, MD
21230<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Office: (410) 659-9314, x2415; <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal>Email: <A href="mailto:scholarships@nfb.org"><SPAN
style="COLOR: blue">scholarships@nfb.org</SPAN></A> <o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><I>Website: <A href="http://www.nfb.org/scholarships"><SPAN
style="COLOR: blue">www.nfb.org/scholarships</SPAN></A> </I><o:p></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The National
Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that
defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people,
because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams.
You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you
back.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN-LEFT: 0.5in" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">To make a donation
to the National Federation of the Blind Imagination Fund campaign, please visit
<A href="https://nfb.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5"><SPAN
style="COLOR: blue">https://nfb.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=5</SPAN></A>.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><o:p><FONT
face=Calibri>-----------------------------------------</FONT></o:p></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">My
Federation Friends, </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">It’s time to let you in on my plan. I bought a house in
southern Minnesota because I’m retiring from my work at the National Federation
of the Blind, and moving my membership from Maryland to Minnesota. Not having
done it yet, I’m not sure how living on my retirement plan is going to work out
when it comes to the fun extras of life, so the 2014 July convention in Orlando
may be my last national convention. Although, if the money permits, I can see me
coming back like former students go to their high school reunion just to enjoy
being with their old friends. My last day on the staff will be July 11, 2014.
Now when did this all start, you may ask. After all, I’m a sighted
guy.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Back in the summer of 1975, I had decided not to sign
the contract to continue as the librarian at a 500-student high school in
southern Wisconsin because I had nothing in common with anyone in that small
town. So, job hunting are us! One fine summer day on a bulletin board in the
multi-story library school of the University of Wisconsin Madison campus, from
which I had received my masters in library science degree, I saw a 3 by 5 typed
card that said, “Librarian Needed. Must have some knowledge of textbooks. Iowa
Commission for the Blind, Des Moines, Iowa, (phone number).”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A teacher in the library school was
passing by just as I finished reading and I asked her, “Have you ever heard of
this library?” She said she’d heard it was the largest library for the blind in
the country. Well! After a tiny high school, that sounded interesting! And Iowa
being next to Wisconsin, I could drive back to visit my family on the holidays.
That it was “for the blind” never really registered with me. I figured a library
was a library. Oh, my! Little did I know how my life was changing from that very
minute. So I called and made an appointment to interview. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">As
it happened (here comes Fate dropping in again), my brother was buying a house
to be close to his new job in northwest Iowa so he and his wife and I rode in
the same car. He dropped me off in Des Moines, where I was to interview for a
few hours. Then I rode with them up to see their new home, and would come back
to Des Moines to have a second interview “if” I was invited to do so.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>During the first interview –with Head
Library Florence Grannis, and Duane Gerstenberger, her replacement in training,
it was all about my ability as a librarian. The Iowa Commission for the Blind
had a large library – a point in its favor, and, when fully staffed, six
librarians serving patrons statewide! I was interviewing to be in charge of
obtaining textbooks from APH or our own transcribers for all (300?) of Iowa’s
K-12 and college-level blind and visually impaired students and all the adults
who needed materials for their work, plus the Braille collection, the large type
collection, and the small professional collections of print books by blind
authors or about blindness and the historical collection of early Braille, New
York Point, Moon Type, and such books. Nope, I did not know Braille; did not
know anything about the NFB, or about how blind persons handle things. But I did
instinctively know that “Gone with the Wind” is still “Gone with the Wind”
whether it is in print or in Braille; and I passed Mrs. Grannis’s several tests
of my competency.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So Mr.
Gerstenberger gave me a stack of banquet speeches that agency director Kenneth
Jernigan had made in his other job as president of a federation for blind
people, and I was set up for a second interview. Hello Fate. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">All
the long way to northeast Iowa I read the speeches. Very interesting! And solid
philosophy! Those speeches just made sense to me. Of course blind Americans
should not be treated that way! And I read them some more all the way back to
Des Moines. I got my second interview, this time with Kenneth Jernigan.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I sat in the chair across from Dr.
Jernigan at his big desk and his assistant, Mrs. Anderson (now Mrs. Jernigan),
sat on a couch to my right side. As I figured out later, this was a subtle test
of attitude—would I look and speak to the sighted person or the blind boss?
Right. It just made sense to me to talk to the boss and, well, I got hired.
</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">July 23, 1975, 8 a.m., I started work at the Iowa
Commission for the Blind as one of their six librarians, and I continued working
there for nearly 13 years. I am proud to be part of “the Iowa connection.” I
joined the NFB at the July 1975 chapter meeting. As part of staff training, Dr.
Jernigan had me reading several decades of back issues of “Braille Monitor,” in
class with Jim Omvig as our teacher for blind civil rights history, and taking
cane travel lessons under sleepshades with Field Op counselor Dick Davis as my
instructor. I really liked cane travel. For my graduation exercise, I walked a
four-mile route around Des Moines. No problem. I learned how to do some other
things under sleepshades too. All of this got me started in understanding how a
blind guy handles whatever he or she wants to do. And in September1975,
President Jernigan invited me to his annual Labor Day weekend NFB Leadership
Seminar at the old Randolph Hotel, where I met Diane McGeorge and my first guide
dog. I am a proud alumna of the Bathroom Seminar, along with Barbara Pierce,
Barbara Beech (Walker Loos), and many other current leaders of the Federation
(not all of them named Barbara). </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I
went on many weekend protests against NAC, driving for the first time ever a
huge15-passenger van to get to that hotel near the O’Hare Airport, on the crazy
Chicago freeways, and this was before GPS was invented. I marched on Hennepin
Avenue in Minneapolis. With Tami Dodd (now Mrs. Jones), Eric Duffy, and Sharon
(now Monthei)—those three blind and all of us wearing sleepshades to prove we
weren’t peeking—I swung my cane and marched in our NFB White Cane Marching Team
in three town parades and at one NFB national convention. I drove for tons of
candy sales. Thank goodness one of the blind students that rode to Oskaloosa
knew how to change the tire on the van when it went flat halfway there,
surrounded by cornfields. None of us in the van will forget the time I drove the
four-hour trip to the Minnesota state convention and Curtis Willoughby and Bob
Ray taught us songs to sing in a bar, and I ran out of gas on that Interstate
superhighway, but coasted down the miraculously appearing ramp right into a gas
station and next to a pump!</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">After a few years, a new chunk got added to my library
work, I became the boss of Iowa’s radio reading program and along with one other
staff person would cut up the “Des Moines Register” to precisely fit our time
slot before being one of our many readers on the air. We were proud to know our
radio service was one of only two RRS in the country that operated on a public
channel. Thanks to using the radio station at the Des Moines tech high school,
we were heard as far as 50 miles out of the city! A truck driver told me he
listened as he made deliveries to farms outside the city. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Dr.
Jernigan and his extraordinary Orientation and Adjustment Center for blind
adults went on all around us in that multi-story building at 4<SUP>th</SUP> and
Keo. We’d find newly blind and scared cane travelers lost in the Talking Book
stacks or get out of their way as after a few weeks they’d be striding down the
city sidewalks outside on their errands. Students made wonderful smells (and
some not so much) come out of the kitchens; students came to check out a first
shortest book possible to practice reading Braille. They’d be gathered in our
comfortable library reading room late into the night, reading and talking.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We who were there every day saw in the
change in the students, from their first day to their graduation. We literally
could see that the NFB method of teaching worked splendidly. We saw students
learn a new positive attitude along with their skills, and we saw those few
students who did not learn the NFB attitude toward blindness. They would go home
with their skills, more or less, but sooner or later start again to be what the
sighted folks around them thought they should be since, after all, they were
blind. Students that joined and got involved with their support group, the
National Federation of the Blind, were the adults that
thrived.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Dr.
Jernigan did not just hang out in his fancy office. He taught you, whether you
were student or staff, and not just about blindness. He was funny, wise,
eccentric, surprising, demanding, giving, super-smart, super-educated, totally
plugged in to Iowa politics, and sometimes ignorant of current cultural icons
(like John Denver and his music!). He read 420 words of Braille per minute—I
timed him, and he was a terrifically good cane traveller. We were walking
downhill on Keo one day at his cane-swinging, lickety-split speed and me in my
two-inch heels nearly sprinting to keep up, until one of my heels broke and he
hammered it back on with his cane handle.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>That man did more work in a day and night than three other people. Of
course he had two full-time jobs—simultaneously the elected President of the
National Federation of the Blind, building the Federation and working on serious
issues nationwide, and the Director of the statewide vocational rehabilitation
center for the blind, which included the training center for blind adults, the
field services department with offices around the state offering home teachers
and counselors, a store for products handmade by (agency-inherited) elderly
blind women, the statewide Business Enterprise Program (which went from the
previous popcorn and packaged candy counters to full-service cafeterias), the
statewide regional library for the blind and physically handicapped, the lending
office for NLS Talking Book machines, the textbooks for the blind program, the
volunteer Braillists program (including for a number of years an operation in
Iowa’s biggest prison), the volunteer readers making open reel masters which
became cassette books at our building, and the radio reading service.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We were everything for the blind except
the school for the blind at Vinton, Iowa, and the checks from Social
Security.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">About three years after I was hired, Dr. Jernigan
resigned his state job and moved the headquarters of the National Federation of
the Blind to Baltimore, Maryland.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A
series of blind directors followed him; none making innovations worth commenting
on and the NFB no longer recommended to students, nor, in some years, even
mentioned in a favorable way.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I
continued to be a steady member of the NFB, attending local meetings, the state
conventions, and the national conventions. One day in July 1987, I got a phone
call from Baltimore. It was Dr. Jernigan. He said, (read this in a deep, deep
voice), “Miss Rovig, How would you like to be director of Job Opportunities for
the Blind?” I said, “But Dr. Jernigan, I’m not blind.” And he said, “Miss Rovig,
How would you like to be the director of Job Opportunities for the Blind?” Not
being dumb twice, I said, “Yes sir, I would.” I was the director of JOB for 10
years. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">At
various times during that decade, Dr. Jernigan also put me in charge of the
single staff person cleaning all the bedrooms in our bedroom wing (I personally
cleaned every toilet we owned many times), cassette production (which, if I
remember right, was more than 60,000 copies per year); and for a very brief
period back in 1975, I was the reader and first engineer of the brand new NFB
studio. Larry McKeever, “the voice of the <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Braille Monitor</I>,” designed it to be, as
he told me, equal to a big-time studio in Nashville. He taught me how to run the
giant board and all the equipment over a couple days. As time went on and the
monthly “Presidential Release” was recorded, Dr. Jernigan and I discovered I was
an okay reader but a poor engineer. Yes, I lost that piece of the job.
(Whew!)</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">JOB
was a big part of my job. The NFB’s innovative program, Job Opportunities for
the Blind, was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor. Mary Ellen Reihing (now
Mrs. Gabias) and I used the NFB studio to produce six cassette newsletters per
year. Half of it was articles about blind workers (I usually did the interviews
and wrote them up) plus job hunting advice, and half of it was reading real job
listings for all kinds of jobs all over the country—as long as they were not
specifically to hire a driver of a vehicle or a life guard at a swimming pool.
My all-time favorite came from the “Baltimore Sun” and said, “Seamstress needed.
Steady work. Baltimore Casket Company.” </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I
got calls from all over the US—blind job seekers asking advice and,
occasionally, an employer worried about the new ADA. What helped folks the most
was our rock solid belief in their goal, and introducing a blind job hunter to
someone who was blind and already at work in that same field or one with similar
requirements. Networking built that essential positive attitude and provided the
practical advice that one who is in a field knows. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Once a year I wrote a four-page
“Employer’s Bulletin” like the one in 1995 called, “Employer Nightmares about
Hiring Blind Employees.” It started like this,</FONT><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">
</FONT></B></SPAN><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: ">“This bulletin is for employers
who have hidden worries about hiring a blind person.”</SPAN><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT color=#333333><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </FONT></FONT></SPAN></SPAN></B><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Some bulletins are still
posted on the NFB website, but they surely need updating. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Then we had the three-hours long JOB Seminars at
national conventions for a live audience of two to three hundred NFB
members.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I was the MC for our
lineup of blind speakers. I’ll never forget the presentations by John Fritz on
doctoring his Wisconsin dairy herd; Doug Lane of Nebraska, a professional baker
for a large hotel; Joe Urbanek, owner of a B&B for newlyweds; Lloyd Watts,
house parent in a group home for adult men with low IQs; Carla McQuillan on
childcare in the home (before she started her Montessori school); Allen Schaefer
of Illinois, a public high school music director and teacher (whose students
went all the way to state several times), so many others. But, golly, my number
one favorite was Robert Munz of Long Island, New York, telling us about his
interview and his job working the Price Club fast food counter. He got the job
of defrosting the pizzas and warming the big dough pretzels when he told the
sighted HR lady that he cooked a meal for 40 as part of his training at the
Louisiana Center for the Blind, and she said, “I couldn’t do that!” and Bob
said, “You could if you tried.”</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I
am proud to say I started the JOB convention breakfast meetings targeted to
different professions. Out of that networking, people found each other and they
grew our NFB divisions for science and engineering, for voc rehab workers, and
for medical fields, among others.</FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </FONT></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">One
day, Dr. Jernigan asked me, “Miss Rovig, would you like to go to the United
Nations?” The NFB was invited to run an information table in the lobby of the UN
in New York City alongside other self-help groups because it was The Year of the
Disabled.</FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </FONT></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">And
one very memorable day, Dr. Jernigan asked me, “Miss Rovig, how would you like
to go to Japan?” Of course, I said, “Yes sir, I would.”<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The Japanese government office that ran
training centers to train blind persons for employment asked for a keynote
speaker to come to their convention to explain how the NFB worked on employment
issues. Their chief push was to teach the use of the Opticon. Unfortunately that
was the last year the machine was manufactured. Anyway, what a wonderful trip
and what an honor to be chosen. I heard later from our contact, Chuji san, that
my speech had been translated and published in the main Tokyo daily newspaper
with my photo. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Well, after I’d done this job for ten years, DOL decided
we’d been funded way longer than they normally would fund any program (normally
only two or three years!) and ended our funding, so Dr. Jernigan switched me to
being the writing-driving-reading assistant to our staff in the IBTC, the
International Braille and Technology Center for the Blind. Working this job for
two years, I learned a lot about modern equipment for blind persons.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I loved the time Robert Jaquiss and I
drove to several high tech companies and saw the amazing, new, 3D printing
machines.</FONT><SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"> </FONT></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">After a while my several layers of bosses and I
discovered I was an editor and proofreader.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My job changed to working in our
Advocacy and Protection Department, mostly proofreading print documents that
leave our building—letters, emails, petitions, invoices, language in new
legislative bills, posters, website pages, fact sheets, and official reports. I
helped proof the opus, “Walking Alone and Marching Together”—all thousand-plus
pages of it. I wrote the wording for the Bolotin Award online under Jim Gashel’s
direction. I began to proofread the “Braille Monitor” and “Future Reflections.”
This is what I’ve done for the last decade.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Dr.
Jernigan had a dream of a national headquarters for the National Federation of
the Blind, one that would work on all the different issues, with room for things
like a library to educate the researchers and a research institute run our way,
an educational center figuring out best practices, and lots of room for offices
and meeting rooms to cover all the different jobs the NFB is doing and will want
to do in the unknown future. This is not a school, but a think-tank at work to
innovate ideas and train the trainers. We had 18 million dollars to raise so I
helped build it. I had NFB accounting take a small portion of my paycheck every
month to give $5,000 to the building of our National Center for the Blind, 200
East Wells Street at Jernigan Place, Baltimore, Maryland 21230. Yup, my name is
on the wall in the Wells Street lobby.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Five years ago, President Maurer changed my job again by
appointing me to assist Anil Lewis, NFB state president in Georgia, with all the
paperwork for our national scholarship program. Under Anil’s direction, I wrote
the information on our scholarship website; answered half a zillion phone calls
and emails, printed and filed the 500 to 700 or so scholarship applications we
get each year, and handled lots of other time-consuming details. After a couple
years, Anil accepted a staff position here in NFB’s home office and Patti Chang,
Esquire, a full-time lawyer in Chicago and president of the NFB of Illinois,
became my boss for this part of my job.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It is so very strange to think this is my last year working on this fun,
important, expensive program.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I so
enjoy meeting our thirty winners at convention and helping them find out that
what the National Federation of the Blind offers to them goes way beyond a
one-time check and a week in a big hotel.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">I
have been to every NFB national convention since 1976. This convention will be
number 39. It’s the most fun you can have in a week and still be legal. I’ve
been to every NFB state convention in the state in which I lived (Iowa or
Maryland) plus some extra state conventions just for fun: Minnesota, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Washington, DC.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>All were so different and yet all were
totally NFB.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">There’s never been a national convention that I didn’t
have several jobs. I met and got to know hundreds and hundreds of our members
when I had the job for many years of training and supervising volunteers for the
NFB Store. Remember the time we had no customers at all, so joking around we got
Ellen Ringlein to do an advertisement and demonstration for her table of Braille
tools in German and got Fatos Floyd to advertise her Braille equipment in
Turkish? Many of our volunteers had a first Braille lesson, many learned how to
use the click rule and the abacus, and many strangers became friends as they sat
beside each other.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">So
many good times!</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Looks like I’m writing a book here, and not a goodbye!
It somehow doesn’t seem proper to say only, “So long, and thanks for all the
fish.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fellow members and friends,
if you read between the lines, you know I will always treasure these
things—getting to know the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met—Dr. Jernigan;
having the chance to work, protest, and laugh with the many wonderful,
hard-working members I’ve met since 1975; and, yes, I very much treasure the
fact that, using such gifts as I have, I have helped the movement of all blind
Americans toward full equality. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The
conclusion I reached in a car crossing the hot summer landscape of Iowa in 1975
hasn’t changed—equality for the blind just makes sense.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>So see you in Orlando! If you come to
Minnesota’s NFB events, look for me there, or find me on NFB
listservs.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">With appreciation for the past and anticipation of the
future,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: "><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Lorraine (also known as, Miss
Rovig)</FONT></SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>