WALLA WALLA – Vivian Conger cannot stand the words “I can’t.”
For 51 years, she has tackled life’s challenges with cheerful determination, enthusiasm and curiosity.
” ‘I can’t’ drives me nuts,” she said, taking a break from answering the technology services help line at Walla Walla Community College, where she is pursuing a medical administrative assistant degree.
Legally blind since birth, Conger said she has lost most of what little sight she had, though she still can distinguish color and contrast.
With the use of technology and the assistance of Blaze, her Labrador retriever guide dog, Conger maintains a staggering schedule.
She studies, sculpts, staffs the college help desk and holds leadership positions in several organizations, including the school’s Phi Beta Lambda business club, United Blind of Walla Walla and Guide Dog Users. She and Blaze also volunteer at the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
“Blaze likes to visit the boys,” Conger said as Blaze settled by her feet.
Conger has been honored as the state’s disabled college student of the year by the Washington Association of Postsecondary Education and Disability.
It’s an honor Conger deserves, said college disability coordinator LaDessa Smelcer.
“She is just a wonderful person,” Smelcer said. “Instead of saying what we can’t do, she finds ways to make things work.”
The disability coordinator said Conger has educated teachers, nondisabled students and disabled peers on the use of adaptive technology, such as programs that use synthesized speech to read computer screens. The student said she constantly looks for ways to make learning and life easier.
“If I don’t know the answer, I go looking,” Conger said.
“There’s a whole world of people with better ideas on what to do than I have. … I’m always looking for different ideas from other people.”
Conger returned to college about two years ago, planning to study medical transcription. She earned a secretarial degree years ago and felt transcription would require similar skills and would be something she could do at home.
“I decided I wanted to do something. I wanted to get a part-time job,” she explained.
But Conger’s instructors saw potential in the cheerful, quiet-voiced woman whose face wears a smile more often than not. They prodded her in the direction of business leadership and records management. She became involved in Phi Beta Lambda and found herself winning awards at contests for her communications and leadership skills.
In addition to her major’s courses, she took a pottery class that launched a love of sculpting.
“I’ve done crafts like macrame and sort of knitting, but never art,” she said. “I love the pottery. It’s hands on. You can take an idea and run with it.”
She has entered several pieces in contests and exhibitions, including a leaf-embossed urn and a sculpture of Blaze.
Smelcer said some of Conger’s teachers were a little nervous at first about having her in class. Their concerns vanished within days, the administrator said.
“She works twice as hard as anyone else,” Smelcer said.
“It does take me longer working with the computers,” Conger said.
She was among the first students to take full advantage of the screen reader program, which has since been installed on computers in several areas on campus.
“We had it, but it wasn’t being used,” Smelcer said.
Conger has been finding ways to overcome her disability for decades. Though born legally blind, she could see well enough to read until 1986, but her sight slowly has degenerated.
“I taught myself Braille before I lost the ability to read,” she said. “I knew it was coming but I didn’t want to be isolated.”
She also learned to use a cane during the 1980s. In 1990, she began working with guide dogs.
“Guide dogs are my thing,” she said.
She credits the support of her husband, Bob, for much of her success. He has taken over care of their home so she can study and stay involved in extracurricular activities and advocacy for blind people.
“He is the person behind me, supporting me all the way,” she said with pride. “If he wasn’t doing what he’s doing, I wouldn’t be as successful.”
Conger said she was astonished to hear she had won a state award.
But Smelcer said none of Conger’s teachers was surprised. Instead, they were delighted. “To a person, her teachers said it was a joy.”
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