[Nfbofsc] Positive Note 1630

[David Houck]

November 8, 2017 

Memo To:  Executive Officers, Board Members, Chapter & Division Presidents &
Others

From:  Frank Coppel, President

Positive Note 1630

Greetings Fellow Federationists:

 

              I am certain by now Board members of RBRCCB and the NFB of SC
as well as Chapter and Division Presidents have received their letter
regarding the Rocky Bottom Christmas Board Retreat on December 1-3.  Please
notify the State Office as soon as possible of your intentions for attending
this Retreat, in order that we may have an accurate head count to purchase
food for the four meals being served (Saturday breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
Sunday breakfast) as well as making the necessary sleeping accommodations.
I am confident we will have near 100 percent of our board members in
attendance and we will have an excellent turnout of Chapter and Division
Presidents present for the weekend.  

              I trust all of you are continuing to work extremely hard
selling your 2018 Orlando National Convention bus tickets.  I am hopeful
ticket sales and what we charge for each seat will cover the cost for the
chartered bus.  As has been the case in previous years, the cost of each bus
ticket is $1.  The drawing will be held at the conclusion of the Statewide
Seminar scheduled for Saturday, January 6, 2018.  The individual who
purchases the winning ticket will receive $300, the seller of the winning
ticket will receive $100 and the chapter who sells the most tickets will
receive $300.  If you are lucky and purchase bus tickets yourself, you could
win a grand total of $400.  Remember, 2018 will be the last year the NFB
National Convention will be held in Orlando, Florida.  Let's work very hard
selling these bus tickets so we can provide transportation to as many of our
members as possible to attend the 2018 National convention in Orlando.  

              We have an announcement from this week's NFB President's
Notebook regarding the NFB National Scholarship Program.  "We are accepting
scholarship applications from November 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018. This
annual program offers thirty scholarships worth from $3,000 to $12,000 to
eligible students, from high school seniors beginning their freshman year in
the fall semester of 2017, up through graduate students working on their PhD
degrees. Go to www.nfb.org/scholarships for complete rules and
requirements."  

               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.  Joining me for comments in this
Positive Note is the President Emeritus of the NFB of SC.  Here is Dr.
Capps.  

              We are spotlighting a talented individual in this week's
Positive Note as you will see.  I refer to Ed Bible.  Ed Bible was born in
Laurens, SC. Two years later his father joined the U.S. Air Force and
retired from the military twenty years later.  As a result his family moved
a lot, growing up from Washington, to Germany, to California and ending up
in Syracuse, NY.

Ed graduated from Rome Free Academy, in Rome, NY.  This was before the days
of vision teachers or any professional assistance while attending public
school.  He asked a pretty girl in his history class to read the text to him
during study hall. That is how Ed got to know Julie. Julie went to Syracuse
University while she finished up her last year of high school and then she
went to a business school.  Ed and Julie were married on Griffiss Air Force
Base the summer before his Senior year of College on June 23, 1973. They
have been married and have had quite an interesting journey together.  They
have two children. The oldest is Jennifer Walker. She has been married to
Matt Walker now for 13 years. They have all the grandchildren so far; Ethan
who will be six this month and his sister Sally (named after Julie's mother)
and she is only two months old.  Our son  Ashton has been married to Dondra
for seven years and they have recently purchased a new large home in Quail
Valley in Irmo.

              Ed Bible's friend Frank Coppel encouraged him to join the NFB
in 1985.  At the time they were members of the Cayce-West Columbia Jaycees
together. Julie and Ed have been active in the NFB ever since.  Their
children grew up in the NFB and have attended most every state convention
when they were young and many National conventions, giving them a rare
opportunity to travel with their federation friends.  Julie and Ed's first
convention was in Chicago in 1988, and they can only guess at the number of
conventions they have attended, but it was rare when they did not attend.
Ed says it would be more than twenty of them, and every convention was
unique in what they learned as it made them better federationists. Also,
each trip was an adventure, giving them hours of stories to retell later.

              Ed has held many positions within the NFB of SC from Columbia
Chapter board member to his current positions as a Member of the NFB of SC
state board for many years, Federation Board of Trustees where he now serves
as its Vice Chairman, and this past year as Vice chairman of Rocky Bottom.
Ed has also been the grateful recipient of several awards of recognition
from the Donald C. Capps Award to the one he just received, the Presidential
Citation.

              After receiving his B.S. in Education from Syracuse University
he of course had difficulty finding a job as a blind teacher. He did many
odd jobs until his mother convinced him to come back to SC. He began his
career as a Recruiter for Snelling and Snelling Staffing where he had a
successful career whereupon he was recruited by Don Bradly from the SC
Commission for the Blind.  He began as a VR Counselor and after 32 years
ended his career as the Director of Training & Employment as a senior
manager for the last 14 years of his career.

              Ed has been honored to be appointed by the Governor to the
Board of Commissioners for SCSDB where he proudly represents the interests
of blind students and supporters of SCSDB.  He has also been elected to be
Treasurer of the of SC Commission for the Blind's Foundation board.

              Ed Bible attends Mt. Hebron United Methodist Church in West
Columbia, whose members have made several mission trips to Rocky Bottom to
help with repairs. His hobby is reading.  There are many other
accomplishments and involvements which Ed and Julie Bible have made,
however, space does not allow us to list all of them.  We appreciate the
many contributions Ed has made to improve the quality of life for blind
South Carolinians.

 

Final Thought:  Aside from October 15 being White Cane Safety Day, did you
know that on October 15, 2017 we celebrated the 57th birthday of the
Federation Center of the Blind which was dedicated on October 15, 1961.

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