And the winner is ...
Young Pioneer Award:
Al Furter
Employer of the Year Award: Butler County Clerk of Court's Office
Volunteer of the Year Award: Pi Kappa Phi fraternity of Miami University
Lloyd Harris Community Award: David Campbell
Jeff and Debbie Crouse Self-Advocate Award: Tim Zellner
Provider of the Year Award: Jewish Vocational Serivce
Fred Valerius Family Lifetime Achievement Award: The Andy and Anna Kabel family
The Butler County Star Award: Ethel Moore
WEST CHESTER TWP. — Some 360 people turned out Sunday, March 7, to help “Erase the R Word” at the 16th annual Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities Community Recognition Dinner.
Keynote speaker Butler County Probate Court Judge Randy Rogers told the audience at the Cincinnati North Marriott on Muhlhauser Road of his encounter with a young man named Scotty, who had muscular dystrophy and had attended the judge’s church.
“Scotty was 10 years old when I met him,” Rogers said. “I kind of felt sorry for him because I knew he didn’t have much.”
Rogers gave Scotty a bucket of Legos one year for Christmas, and recalled how his eyes lit up when he set them on his wheelchair. But Scotty and his mother soon started going to another church, and Rogers lost track of them for several years.
Scotty was a grown man living in a group home when his mother came to ask the judge to officiate at her wedding and Scotty served as a witness. He had become an artist at the Inside Out Studio at the BCBDD’s Liberty Center, and the judge asked him to draw a picture of the courtroom.
Scotty died before he could present his drawing to Rogers, but when the judge got it, he was impressed by the detail in the drawing, especially considering the tedious process that Scotty, who had lost use of his arms, and his aides had to go through to create it.
The drawing included a bucket of Legos on the bench and a gavel with an inscription “Thank you very much.”
“I have a number of degrees, but there was something in that picture that Scotty taught me that I never learned in schools,” Rogers said. “He taught me how to be thankful. I gave him a bucket of Legos, and he gave me a lesson in life.
“Every life has meaning,” he said.
The banquet included the premiere of BCBDD’s 2010 awareness video and public service announcements with the theme “Erase the R Word” to encourage people to stop using “retarded” when speaking of persons with developmental disabilities. L&M Train, a musical group consisting of clients at the Liberty and Middletown adult drop-in centers, performed, plus eight major awards and 150 Community Recognition Awards were handed out to honor individuals, businesses and organizations that work with people with developmental disabilities.
The evening concluded with a tribute to Linda Good, presented by her sister Stephanie Harris. Good, who lost the use of her legs in an automobile accident when she was 17 years old, was well-known in Butler County and had received statewide recognition for her advocacy of people with special needs. Good died in December 2009, and Harris announced that BCBDD will honor her with an award in her name at next year’s banquet.
“Her legacy lives on in all of her volunteer efforts over the last three decades,” Harris said, “so that people with disabilities could ‘go where everyone else has gone before,’” a slogan that Good had on a bumper sticker on her wheelchair.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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