From the Chicago Tribune:

Seventeen-year-old Anne Jennings was selected homecoming queen at Libertyville High School north of Chicago earlier this month. She has Down syndrome.

“Before, I was just plain me,” said Jennings, selected by student vote out of 17 nominated girls. “When I was queen, it changed. It’s amazing. Everyone loves me. I love me.”

See earlier posts on a Texas homecoming queen here and here.

(Tribune photo)

From the Dallas Morning News:

Eighteen-year-old Kristin Pass (center, left) was voted homecoming queen by members of the senior class at Aledo High School in Aledo, Texas, just west of Fort Worth. Kristin has Down syndrome.

“Oh my gosh! I was sitting in the student section and everyone stood up, crying and cheering for Kristin,” said longtime friend and fellow senior Meaghan Geary, 17, who first met Kristin in the third grade. “It was great!”

… Kristin doesn’t care what’s on the outside, Meaghan said. She’s friends with everyone, and everyone admires that.

“She’s the person we all want to be,” Meaghan said.

See also: Special teen crowned homecoming queen at Aledo — Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

From the Des Moines Register:

Cy Arnett and three other men with intellectual disabilities rock out at a karaoke bar in Des Moines each week. Between performances, they live in a group home.

Bar owner Billy Bryant said at first some of the regulars at Billy Joe’s Pitcher Show didn’t understand the “Greased Lightning boys,” as they’re called. “To be honest, it was a little disturbing for them,” he said.

He moved the crew to Sundays, where there were fewer customers, and thought he’d only  let them stay until the big audiences came back for football season. But then … an excerpt:

… Bryant watched as the boys and their followers grew. He soon realized what the day means to them. They dress up, celebrate birthdays, and look forward to Sunday all week.

… He decided the boys could stay.

“I didn’t have the heart to turn them down,” he said. “There’s no place else for these kids to go.”

(Travis Leach, left, Cyron Arnett and Steven Jenkins rock out during karaoke at Billy Joe’s Pitcher Show in West Des Moines; Des Moines Register photo)

By Rick Reilly in ESPN The Magazine; earlier story from KDKA TV in Pittsburgh:

Lawyer Craig Dietz swam in the Pittsburgh Triathlon recently as part of a three-man relay team he called Bob (at left). He came in 273rd out of 308 swimmers, which meant he beat 35 people who had all their arms and legs.

Dietz was born without limbs as a result of a “genetic fluke,” has great friends and a great sense of humor. An excerpt:

Stare at him if you want. He’s past caring. He’s got too much to do. He works as a lawyer for the city of Pittsburgh. He bowls, skis, hunts (bagged an eight-point buck once), fishes, kicks butt at mini golf, plays volleyball (hits the ball off his head), jams on the drums, has a girlfriend and drives his own van (with a fake license plate that reads, look, mom! no hands!). Mostly, he makes you feel like a worthless, prechewed slab of meat, wasting your able-bodied life eating Cheetos and watching Tila Tequila.

Dietz says he doesn’t want to be anybody’s inspiration.

A video of Dietz can be seen on the KDKA site here.

(Photo from ESPN the Magazine)

Matches students with, without disabilities

‘With buddies, they’re 1 of the gang’

From the Chicago Tribune:

The “peer buddy” movement is transforming special education across Illinois and the nation. Students with intellectual disabilities are matched with “regular” teens to bridge the social gulf that has persisted through decades of attempts to merge children with disabilities into the academic mainstream. The focus is on teaching social skills and empathy, but students also find valuable friendships forming, too.

Writing in the Dallas Morning News, columnist Jacquielynn Floyd hangs out at Chili’s restaurant with a group of kids who are enjoying their once-a-month Supper Club. The club was started by pediatric therapist Mary Hawkins, and is designed to help kids with autism make friends and have fun. In the process, they also pick up social skills and learn to navigate a restaurant.

Floyd describes the kids with autism as “quirky” and “relentlessly entertaining,” as their conversation jumps from topic to topic in a way that assures non sequiturs. Most often, Floyd is told, these are kids whose social isolation is painful to them and to their families. But at Supper Club, they feel the “blissful pleasure of belonging.”

Imagine, for instance, being the mom of a boy who came home from school not long ago and miserably reported on his day. In a determined effort to strike up a conversation with a girl in his class, he had volunteered that he liked her handbag. The girl’s response: “Get away from me, you creep.”

Just hearing this story made my heart hurt. In the merciless tribal segregation of the middle-school social order, this sweet-natured, gentle boy (whose mother sadly shared this anecdote) is doomed to permanent outsider status.

At Supper Club, though, these children are very much insiders.

The story is accompanied by a video of the Supper Club. Definitely worth seeing.