[Blindtlk] FW: Blindness never stopped Dick Edlund

[David Andrews]

>
>Blindness never stopped Dick Edlund, vice 
>president of the Kansas chapter of the National 
>Federation of the Blind, from making the most of life's opportunities.
>
>Edlund, 81, of Kansas City, Kan., has done more 
>in his life than most sighted people do. He ran 
>five businesses, studied law, organized blind 
>workers around  the country and served six terms as a state representative.
>
>An accident during a construction job blowing up 
>bridge piers left Edlund blind in 1933, two months short of his 19th birthday.
>
>"I was pronounced dead twice in the hospital, I 
>am told," he said Saturday at the Olathe Holiday 
>Inn, where he attended the NFB of Kansas annual 
>convention.   "So everything else is a bonus."
>
>Edlund took a year recovering and thinking about 
>his future. State counselors did not help. He 
>said he told them he wanted to be a lawyer but they put up hurdles.
>
>"I told them I don't understand their position. 
>They said a blind guy can't be a lawyer," Edlund said.
>
>At 21, he started a business manufacturing 
>concrete blocks. Two years later, he bought and ran a hardware store.
>
>In his mid-30s, he went to night college to 
>study law but never took the bar exam. He also 
>started an agricultural feed business and opened 
>a shop repairing small one cylinder engines at a 
>time when power mowers were becoming popular.
>
>Not long after, Edlund bought a fertile piece of 
>land to grow alfalfa for his feed operation. 
>Later, he built his own runway and airport and bought and  sold airplanes.
>
>Finally, he started an auction business.
>
>"I made more money accidentally than I ever done 
>anything else on purpose," Edlund said with a 
>chuckle. "That's a heck of a good business."
>
>He joined the NFB in 1969. During a 1977 
>convention, the federation president asked him 
>to organize a Cincinnati, Ohio, sheltered 
>workshop. Edlund said he contacted the Teamsters 
>union and organized the workshop within two years.
>
>Edlund reels off the places he organized blind 
>workers in the following years: Houston; Little 
>Rock, Ark.; Los Angeles, Seattle; Salt Lake City; Raleigh, N.C.; and others.
>
>In the mid-1960s, Edlund said, he attended a 
>meeting intending to run for a House seat but 
>ended up agreeing to be Fred Rosenau's campaign 
>manager. Edlund held the position for 22 years 
>as Rosenau served from 1966 to 1988.
>
>Edlund retired from business in 1989 when he 
>turned 65, selling his businesses.
>
>"I got terribly bored in six weeks and let some 
>people talk me into running," he said. "I did and made it."
>
>He served in the Kansas House from 1990 to 1996, 
>when his wife died. During his term, he 
>sponsored the Braille bill, which mandates that 
>every school must  teach a visually impaired child to read Braille.
>
>Edlund sees society's pusillanimity toward the 
>blind as a big issue. Counselors and teachers 
>discourage blind children from taking paths the 
>adults assume will be too hard for the children 
>or because other blind children have failed at 
>them. Worse, they do not tell them anything, Edlund said.
>
>"Young people losing sight don't have any idea 
>what they can do or how they can do it," Edlund said.
>
>Edlund has traveled the world offering his 
>service to organizations for the blind. He is losing hearing and laments that.
>
>"I did a lot of traveling alone but I had 
>hearing. I had hearing like a bat. Loss of 
>hearing is an awful lot worse than loss of 
>sight. Most people would not believe that."
>
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>
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David Andrews and white cane Harry.