2008.06.29: June 29, 2008: Headlines: COS - Panama: Obituaries: Disabilities: Awards: Blindness: Washington Post: Obituary for Panama RPCV Bud Keith

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Panama: Peace Corps Panama : Peace Corps Panama: Newest Stories: 2008.06.29: June 29, 2008: Headlines: COS - Panama: Obituaries: Disabilities: Awards: Blindness: Washington Post: Obituary for Panama RPCV Bud Keith

By Admin1 (admin) (70.250.245.178) on Sunday, July 13, 2008 - 11:43 pm: Edit Post

Obituary for Panama RPCV Bud Keith

Obituary for Panama RPCV Bud Keith

Raymond Fred Keith, a fourth-generation Washingtonian, was born Nov. 20, 1939. He was attending a private school in Delaware when a classmate pierced his left eye with a nail. His right eye became diseased, and within eight months he was blind. He was active in sports and drama at the Maryland School for the Blind in the 1950s and later became fascinated by bowling. He won several national blind bowling tournaments during the next two decades. In 1965, three years after graduating from American University, he became a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama and taught at a school for the blind. Blind people have always been a rarity in the organization, a spokeswoman said. Keith's personal travels took him from New Zealand to the Serengeti plain in Africa, and he deepened his involvement in athletics for the disabled. He said he preferred cross-country to downhill skiing because downhill required complete obedience to a guide and was not relaxing.

Obituary for Panama RPCV Bud Keith

Accidentally Blinded, He Became Tireless Champion for Disabled

By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, June 29, 2008; Page C08

Bud Keith was a high school wrestler, a championship bowler and a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama. In his early 40s, he twice tried to ascend Mount Rainier, the Washington state volcano that is one of the highest peaks in the country.

Keith, who was blind, once lamented, "Too many disabled people are out of shape." So he joined a group that uses outdoor sports to help rehabilitate the physically handicapped and helped build Ski for Light, an organization for blind skiers.

Keith, 68, an Arlington County resident who died June 14 of prostate cancer, defined himself through physical independence as well a dash of mischief and irascibility.

He said he never much liked guide dogs except as an excuse to meet women. He hated when little old ladies tried to help him cross the street. They would reach around him and push. "Thus," he said, "making both of us sight impaired."

He was an equal opportunity specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services, and his job was to safeguard the civil rights of minorities and the disabled. But sitting in a federal office building was never as satisfying, he said, as escaping into his serious extracurricular interests.

In 1991, he was honored at the Norwegian Embassy in Washington for his work with Ski for Light, which was modeled on a Norwegian program. The ambassador called him a "tireless champion of sports and recreation for the handicapped."
ad_icon

In his acceptance speech, Keith spoke about feeling limited professionally in his civil rights career. "The same opportunity has not been available for me professionally," he told the crowd of dignitaries. "So if this is where I get to be a boss for a little while, that's the way it is."

Speaking of the skiing organization, he said, "You see the tears when the week of skiing ends and people say, 'Well, it's time to return to the real world.' I try to communicate that Ski for Light is the real world."

Raymond Fred Keith, a fourth-generation Washingtonian, was born Nov. 20, 1939. He was attending a private school in Delaware when a classmate pierced his left eye with a nail. His right eye became diseased, and within eight months he was blind.

He was active in sports and drama at the Maryland School for the Blind in the 1950s and later became fascinated by bowling. He won several national blind bowling tournaments during the next two decades.

In 1965, three years after graduating from American University, he became a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama and taught at a school for the blind. Blind people have always been a rarity in the organization, a spokeswoman said.

Keith's personal travels took him from New Zealand to the Serengeti plain in Africa, and he deepened his involvement in athletics for the disabled. He said he preferred cross-country to downhill skiing because downhill required complete obedience to a guide and was not relaxing.

In July 1981, he was one of 10 disabled adults chosen to scale Mount Rainier for what the United Nations dubbed the International Year of Disabled Persons. The climbers, including people who were blind, deaf, amputees and epileptic, were led by James Whittaker, the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

Rainier is 14,410 feet high, and Keith collapsed at 12,500 feet after experiencing altitude sickness; his companions soldiered on and left him in a sleeping bag in an ice cave. But they were all feted that month by President Reagan, to whom the climbers gave an American flag and jelly beans during a White House Rose Garden reception.

The next year, Keith returned to Rainier and made it to 10,000 feet before 70 mph winds and pounding sleet and snow forced everyone to abandon the attempt.

In the mid-1990s, he married Billie Jean Hill, a legally blind woman, after what she wryly called their "whirlwind courtship of 13 years," and he wrote a memoir.

"Every so often I wonder how different things might have been if I had seen, but of course that can't be known," he wrote. "I imagine what the earth must look like from an airplane; I wonder if I could have become a well-known athlete. . . . I wonder if I would have appreciated my life so much without the human interaction that blindness has facilitated."

"Would I have made so many friends, or would that lonely and socially inappropriate little boy that was accidentally blinded become a lonely and socially inappropriate sighted adult?"
ad_icon

Keith never had a title for his unpublished book, but friends had his disposition in mind when they suggested, "Don't Tell Me What I Can't Do!" and, more to the point, "Back Off."



Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: June, 2008; Peace Corps Panama; Directory of Panama RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Panama RPCVs; Obituaries; Disabilities; Awards





When this story was posted in July 2008, this was on the front page of PCOL:


Contact PCOLBulletin BoardRegisterSearch PCOLWhat's New?

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers RSS Feed
Dodd vows to filibuster Surveillance Act Date: October 27 2007 No: 1206 Dodd vows to filibuster Surveillance Act
Senator Chris Dodd vowed to filibuster the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would grant retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that helped this administration violate the civil liberties of Americans. "It is time to say: No more. No more trampling on our Constitution. No more excusing those who violate the rule of law. These are fundamental, basic, eternal principles. They have been around, some of them, for as long as the Magna Carta. They are enduring. What they are not is temporary. And what we do not do in a time where our country is at risk is abandon them."

Peace Corps News Peace Corps Library Peace corps History RPCV Directory Sign Up

May 1, 2008: This Month's Top Stories Date: May 2 2008 No: 1242 May 1, 2008: This Month's Top Stories
Condoleezza Rice Visits PC Headquarters 28 Apr
Bush hosts PCVs at White House 29 Apr
George Derrick is Oklahoma's first PCV 27 Apr
Debate is Brewing over Older Volunteers 25 Apr
Peter Spiro Scaled Corporate Ladder at Microsoft 24 Apr
Ukraine PCV terminated after testing HIV positive 22 Apr
Strauss writes: PC never lived up to purpose or principles 22 Apr
Atlantic Publishing needs your help on PC book 21 Apr
Nicole Nakama follows in footsteps of Father as PCV 21 Apr
Jerry LaPre writes: The Children of Sierra Leone 21 Apr
Robert Blackwill quits lobbying firm 19 Apr
An Interview with Christopher R. Hill 18 Apr
Harris Wofford introduces Obama's Speech on Race 18 Apr
Matthews could Challenge Arlen Specter for Senate 16 Apr
Lee Myung-bak invites 1500 RPCVs back to Korea 15 Apr
Peace Corps looks forward to returning to Kenya 11 Apr
Kathleen Stephens Quizzed by Congress 11 Apr
Campbell murder trial ends; Verdict set for June 30 9 Apr
Dodd Calls for New Strategic Partnership in Americas 9 Apr
Jake Hooker wins Pulitzer Prize for "A Toxic Pipeline" 9 Apr
Sirleaf welcomes return of PCVs to Liberia 8 Apr

New: More Stories from March and April 2008

March 31, 2008: This Month's Top Stories Date: May 1 2008 No: 1238 March 31, 2008: This Month's Top Stories
John Nichols writes: Tom Petri Challenges Abusive Secrecy 15 Mar
Timothy Shriver writes Baseball and 'Sarge' 31 Mar
Barry Kitterman writes "Baker's Boy" 30 Mar
Nathaniel Spiller writes: Friendship Thrives in Senegal 30 Mar
Garamendi Addresses California Democratic Convention 29 Mar
Melinda Palma lunches with Bush in Ghana 28 Mar
Peace Corps Director Tschetter leads by example 28 Mar
Bush presents Service Award to Lydia Humenycky 27 Mar
Suspension of Kenya Program under review 23 Mar
Patricia 'Pan' Godchaux rejoins PC after 40 years 23 Mar
James Rupert writes: Parliament to Rein In Musharraf 23 Mar
Embassies pay for devalued dollar 22 Mar
Sargent Shriver at Fund Raiser for Best Buddies 21 Mar
Terry Thomas strongly opposed to war in Iraq 19 Mar
Tony D’Souza's new book is "The Konkans" 18 Mar
Larry Kaplow writes: US taking notice of ordinary Iraqis 17 Mar
Bruce Cumings says North Korea tough to invade 12 Mar
PCVs Participate in ‘Walk the Nation’ in Swaziland 10 Mar
Theroux says India as hospitable as ever 8 Mar
Tony Hall talks about hunger in Bonita 6 Mar
Hill says relations with North Korea possible 4 Mar

New: More Stories from February and March 2008

What is Wrong at the US Embassy in Bolivia? Date: February 10 2008 No: 1227 What is Wrong at the US Embassy in Bolivia?
Last summer Peace Corps Inspector General David Kotz cited the lack of cooperation from the US embassy in Bolivia in the search for missing Peace Corps Volunteer Walter Poirier III. Now a member of the US Embassy Staff in Bolivia is accused of asking Peace Corps Volunteers "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans in the country. Could US Ambassador Philip S.Goldberg please explain what is going on at the embassy that he has been running in La Paz since 2006?



Read the stories and leave your comments.








Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Washington Post

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Panama; Obituaries; Disabilities; Awards; Blindness

PCOL41552
41


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: