[nagdu] Hello and I have a question!

[Ginger Kutsch]

Hi Darlene,

Congratulations on your new dog Maggie.

I have never heard of fire codes that restrict the placement of a service 
animal. The National Fire Protection Association addresses service animals 
in their publication about emergency evacuations but that's the only thing I 
have seen. I'd be curious to know what you find out from your local fire 
marshal.

BTW, great article in the newspaper yesterday. I'm pasting below for others 
to read.

Ginger
---
MONDAY PROFILE | DARLENE ACREE sellars
Monday Profile: She Overcomes Early Tragedy

By Robin Williams Adams
The Ledger
Published: Sunday, October 26, 2008 at 9:40 p.m.
LAKE WALES - Darlene Acree was a high school senior, with a boyfriend, a 
part-time job and graduation on the horizon. She had everything to look 
forward to and didn't realize how much she had to lose.


RICK RUNION | THE LEDGER Buy photo
DARLENE ACREE SELLARS with her guide dog Petey at her home in Lake Wales has 
achieved a great deal in higher education since a terrible car accident when 
she was in high school.
DAWN DARLENE ACREE SELLARSBorn:

June 25, 1972, in Lake Wales.
Education:
Associate's degree in liberal arts from Polk Community College, bachelor's 
degree in organizational management from Warner Southern College
Family:
Husband, John; stepdaughters, Elizabeth and Jennifer; mother, stepfather, 
two sisters, and 10 nieces and nephews.
Favorite drink:
Coffee.
Favorite food: Pizza.
Bad habit: Eating too much.
Pet peeve: Superficial people.
Hobbies: Roller skating, walking, listening to any music but rap, cooking 
and working on the computer.
Favorite author: Maya Angelou.
Philosophy: To make the most of life and do the best I possibly can.
As she and her boyfriend traveled down Camp Mack Road in December 1989, she 
said, he apparently fell asleep at the wheel.

The car went off the road.

He died. She had extensive injuries to her face and arm.

Plastic surgery could fix her face but not all of the injuries behind it.

The 17-year-old Darlene was in a coma for almost two weeks. When she woke, 
she was blind.

She still is, as the presence of a guide dog makes clear.

But that was more than half a lifetime ago, the 36-year-old tells people who 
might want to obsess on her past.

She prefers talking about what she's done since then: working in Tampa, 
earning an associate's degree at Polk Community College and a bachelor's 
degree in organizational management at Warner Southern College; and getting 
married in March, making her Darlene Acree Sellars.

She discusses how much she wants a job which would allow her to use her 
education and how she may go back to school for a master's degree.

"I want my nieces and nephews to know blindness is not what people 
stereotype it to be," Sellars said during an interview in the meticulously 
tidy living room of a hurricane-damaged Lake Wales house she and her 
husband, John, are restoring.

"I want to be a good example," she said. "I want them to know, if they try 
hard and work hard, they can be anything they want to be."

Speaking Tuesday at PCC's Disability Awareness Luncheon, her focus will be 
on diversity, looking at people's similarities and strengths, and overcoming 
barriers.

People who know her - a former boss, PCC employees and family members - said 
the last thing Sellars wants is pity.

She is determined to do as much as she can, including continuing to roller 
skate, which sometimes worries her mother and husband.

"She wants to help anybody she can help," said her mother, Judy Kerrn. "She 
doesn't want anybody to help her."

LAKE WALES NATIVE

Dawn Darlene Acree Sellars was born in Lake Wales on June 25, 1972, to 
Donald and Judy Acree.

Her mother was a hairstylist and her father, who died in 2004, was a 
rancher.

Growing up around animals led Sellars and her two sisters into 4-H, and into 
raising steers and pigs with Future Farmers of America.

"They were tomboys during the week and then dressed up for the Lord on 
Sunday," Kerrn said, describing the young Darlene as smart, well-behaved and 
the fastest of the girls to get ready for school in the morning.

Sellars attended Lake Wales Christian School and Temple Christian in 
Lakeland until coming to McLaughlin Junior High for eighth grade.

At Lake Wales High School, she became president of the school's FFA chapter, 
along with holding county and regional FFA offices.

"I really didn't have any plans for college," Sellars said. "I was 17 and 
having the best time of my life."

She doesn't remember the accident, but she has heard the stories. The man 
who spotted the wrecked car told the rescue workers there was no need to 
hurry because the driver was dead. Once he saw her on the floor and realized 
she still was alive, he made an urgent follow-up call.

During her stay at Winter Haven Hospital and recovery at home, her sisters 
drew together in support.

Her older sister, Laurie, left work to help take care of her. The younger 
one, Christie, helped her select clothes.

With their help, and an English teacher who came to the home to tutor her, 
she was able to graduate with her class in June 1990.

She said surviving the accident and being blind taught her: Don't take 
things for granted. Be grateful for what you have. Never give up.

"I can do so many things in life," she said. "I just go about doing them a 
different way."

Moving to Tampa, she got help from Lighthouse for the Blind in learning job 
skills and finding work.

She became a receptionist at Mental Health Care Inc., answering a four-line 
switchboard and arranging speakers for different mental health groups.

She almost always was the first one in, said Ramonita Delgado, her 
supervisor there.

Her promptness and positive attitude made her popular, especially when she 
started making the morning coffee.

"She was excellent," Delgado said. "Very likeable but very professional ... 
I don't think we had anyone like her before or after."

When that employer lost United Way funding, Sellars switched to the Mental 
Health Association of Hillsborough County. She said she handled a 12-line 
switchboard and took four buses a day to get there and back.

"It was crazy but I loved it," she said.

HIGHER EDUCATION

In the back of her mind, however, she kept thinking about the higher 
education.

In 2000, she returned to Lake Wales and began at Polk Community College in 
2001. She got help from the local Lighthouse for the Blind with computer 
skills and equipment.

By then, she was more serious about school and more determined to succeed, 
said Christie Luszczewski, her younger sister.

When he started dating her, John Sellars, maintenance supervisor for two 
Winter Haven apartment complexes, was amazed by her commitment to get her 
college degree.

"I'd want to do something and she'd say 'No, I have to do this for school,' 
" he recalled.

He became accustomed to the extra effort his future wife needed to make, 
using specialized equipment that scans documents and reads aloud items such 
as e-mails in her computer, and to the way she sometimes confuses day and 
night.

"She would get up at 2 in the morning and work until she had to go to 
school," he said. "Then she'd get home and work until 11."

With Petey, a half lab and half golden retriever who became her guide dog 
eight years ago, Sellars came to the Winter Haven campus before classes 
began to scope out the campus.

'BEAUTIFUL PERSON'

Security guard Jane Biglin said she soon realized Sellars didn't need or 
want much assistance.

"She is a beautiful person," Biglin said. "The students loved her."

Sellars said she was "overwhelmed" the first day and appreciated "Miss 
Jane's" help, but that she and Petey soon found where to go.

Petey switched from her guide dog to her pet this month when Sellars got a 
new guide dog named Maggie.

Two of Sellars' PCC professors are enthusiastic about her.

"She didn't make excuses," said ceramics professor Gary Baker. "If she 
screwed up, she's say 'I screwed up. What do I have to do to fix this?'"

She was open about her difference, receptive when other students asked 
questions about how to interact with someone who is blind and quipped "I'll 
see you later" when she left, say Baker and Rebecca Heintz, a PCC English 
professor.

"Meeting her is when I began to see myself as an underachiever," Heintz 
said. "It isn't Darlene's disability that inspires; it's her lack of 
disability."

Sellars graduated from PCC in spring 2006 with a 4.0 average. She received 
the 2006 Allen T. Cole Distinguished Academic Achievement Award and spoke at 
PCC's December 2007 commencement.

In January, she got her bachelor's degree in organizational management from 
Warner Southern. She does online tutoring for students and is looking for a 
job in Winter Haven or Lake Wales, areas to which she can get transportation 
fairly easily.

"I enjoy helping people who want the help," she said.

[ Robin Williams Adams can be reached at robin.adams at theledger.com or 
863-802-7558. ]