[Nfbv-announce] NFB Scholarship winner off to school!

Mon Aug 24 21:31:30 UTC 2015

Stewart Prost, Tidewater Chapter President, shares a headline story in the
Virginia Pilot about our 2015 Virginia NFB National Scholarship winner
Marché Daughtry.

Blind Oscar Smith grad sets off for college, on quest to succeed far from
home

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1 of 5 photos: 

Eighteen year old MarChe' Daughtry, graduated from Oscar Smith High School
this past June, she was enrolled and completed the International
Baccalaureate Program at the school. MarChe' will be continuing her
education at Williams College, she has accomplished all this in her life
while overcoming the challenges of being blind from birth. Portrait of
MarChe' taken at Oscar Smith High School, Aug. 18, 2015. L. Todd Spencer |
The Virginian-Pilot (L. Todd Spencer | The Virginian-Pilot)

<http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/imagecache/large_site_image_760x7
60/files/images/1892261000.jpg> View all 5 photos |
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By  <http://hamptonroads.com/2008/05/mike-connors> Mike Connors
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 23, 2015 

CHESAPEAKE

She was 8 years old and using words such as loquacious, gregarious and
rambunctious.

Relatives were amazed that a little girl could use and spell such big words.

MarChé Daughtry had learned them on her own.

This week, Daughtry will leave for Williams College in Massachusetts,
recently ranked the second-best school in the nation by Forbes.

She will be the college's first blind student in several years, officials
said.

Her goal is to become a civil rights attorney.

"I want to make life better for people like me," the Oscar Smith High School
graduate said.

Daughtry has never been able to see. And when she was old enough to start
learning Braille, her mother hesitated because she was afraid of the stigma.

"That meant she was blind," Zina Lewis said.

But her daughter never interpreted it that way. Blindness, everyone who
knows her said, never slowed Daughtry down.

Deborah Prost, a teacher of the blind for Chesapeake Public Schools, who is
also blind, has known Daughtry since kindergarten. She has excelled, Prost
said, by combining natural gifts with an intense desire to push herself.

With Prost, Daughtry played games like hangman that helped her learn letters
and words. Then she would go home and study more on her own. Her mother, who
worked nights as a single parent, does not know Braille.

Many nights, Daughtry would read an entire book. They were rarely children's
books.

Daughtry prefers stories that take her to different eras and parts of the
world, so by the end of elementary school, her list included "The Iliad" and
"The Odyssey," as well as the novel "Pride and Prejudice."

Daughtry also liked testing herself. If she didn't know a word, she learned
its meaning and committed to working it into conversations.

"I guess it's just part of my personality," she said.

Still, learning was hardly a breeze because there were many things she
couldn't relate to. Both Prost and Sharon Wiggins, a teacher assistant in
Chesapeake who has worked with Daughtry since third grade, said the issue
was compounded by her fear of voicing concerns.

"MarChé first had to learn how to speak up for herself," Wiggins said.

During one geometry lesson, a teacher told the class to think about angles
on houses. Daughtry didn't know what a house looked like.

"I need to be able to touch things," she said. "That's my form of
reference."

Kerri Lancaster, Chesapeake's International Baccalaureate coordinator,
recalls meeting Daughtry for the first time on a visit to Oscar Smith when
she was in elementary school.

Her reading ability and inquisitive nature stood out so much that Lancaster
hoped she would one day enter the high school's International Baccalaureate
program. It is filled with Advanced Placement and other tough classes.

Before junior year, Daughtry considered opting out of IB after she received
a roughly 3-inch-thick packet of assignments. Then she thought about other
blind students and decided to send a message about embracing the unknown.

She graduated from Oscar Smith in June with a grade-point average above 4.7.

"There is a spark about MarChé," Lancaster said.

Tuition, room and board total $63,000 at Williams, but the school is helping
Daughtry because of her academic success, so she said she will pay only
about $1,500 this year.

Daughtry has already met other students attending the college and is
arriving early on campus. School officials will show her around so she can
get adjusted. She will also use a GPS system to get around.

Still, it will be the first time she is away from home and her mother for an
extended time. That will be tough.

"It's going to be an adjustment for both of us," Lewis said.

It's one Daughtry is excited about. She picked Williams in part because when
she visited, students treated her like anyone else.

"I felt at home there," she said.

More importantly, though, she will have the chance to succeed on her own,
more than 500 miles from home.

"I want to be independent," she said.

Mike Connors, 757-222-5217, michael.connors at pilotonline.com
<mailto:michael.connors at pilotonline.com> 

Twitter: @MikeConnors14

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.

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