Great Falls Tribune from Great Falls, Montana • Page 8

8A Great Falls Tribune Wednesday, October 1 1 986 Polio sufferer overcame cruelty ST'B COWIiNG! tors and staff at its annual Great she was frustrated as a teen-ager about "having to sit on the sidelines" of life. Speaking to another listener, OCTOBER 1ST kt; IT Villines said she first felt whole, not disabled, when she held her first baby in her arms. "Eight doctors had told me I could not have children, and there she was," she recalled. Villines travels frequently in her work, speaking to audiences ranging from car dealers to bankers to professionals who work with the handicapped. She frequently includes time to speak to people with handicaps on her trip she said.

"Th''s who I am; those are my people, because that (the lives they lead) is the reality of disability," she said. Speaking to a reporter during a break in her schedule on Friday, Villines stopped to greet a colleague from another state who is in Great Falls for the Easter Seal Society annual meeting this weekend. Walking with a cane himself, the man gently referred to the fact that she still has her "golden sticks." "You can't buy them (the crutches). You have to earn them, you know," she responded. By GWINN DYRLAND Tribune Staff Writer Evelyne Villines, who was struck by polio as a three-year-old in Iowa, didn't know she was handicapped until her new first grade teacher sent her home because the teacher didn't have time to work with a handicapped child.

Remembering how she marched back to school the next day with the town's mayor "That was my father," she said Villines joked that the experience taught her what it means to have clout. Despite having a loving family, Villines recalled, she learned many things about being handicapped the hard way: she was taunted by some children as "Gimp" and "Crip" because of her limp. She stayed months at a crippled children's hospital where patients were ridiculed if they cried, and paraded naked in front of medical students "as the possessors of warped and crippled bodies," she remembered. "There is a loneliness in being different. But that loneliness can be taken away, once we open our hearts and our minds to really giving, giving of ourselves," she told a Great Falls audience of people with handicaps at the Easter Seal Center Friday.

Now a consultant with the Easter Seal Society of Iowa, Villines, of Des Moines, Iowa, also spoke to the Easter Seal Society's board of direc The Great Falls Jaycees are asking your support of our annual Bag Sales Fund Drive Your support last year raised over $10,000 for Christmas and other community projects Children's Christmas This year the Great Falls Jaycees will again purchase needed shoes, clothing and other items for underprivileged youth within our community We will be calling you very soon. A donation of $15 or more will receive a complimentary gift of yard bags. Falls banquet Friday night. Among a sheaf of national honors she has received, she haii just been named to a National Hall of Fame among handicapped persons. In a speech that was largely personal and inspirational, Villines also urged the Easter Seal clients to register and vote.

"See which of our candidates are supporting programs that benefit you and me," she told them. Villines said later in an interview that programs to assist the handicapped have received some harsh criticisms and been affected by budget cuts in the 1980s. "It's a very frightening time" for people whose handicaps put them in need of basic services, she said. Speaking to her audience of Easter Seal clients who include people with all sorts of disabilities, Villines said, "I want for you and for every person who lives in this wonderful country of ours to live in dignity and hold our heads high." To this day, some strangers who see Villines on crutches or in her wheelchair avoid speaking to her because they are uncomfortable with a handicapped person or assume she is mentally handicapped and won't be able to understand them, she said. No one handicapped or not looks quite like they wish they did, Villines told her listeners, adding, Evelyne Villines "it's what you are Inside that really counts.

And it's inside that we can be as beautiful as we want to be." Villines answered one client's question about her biggest problem growing up handicapped by saying THE GREAT FALLS JAYCEES A Leadership Training Organization P.O. Box 2001 Sfi4 GREAT FALLS wear rans, im. jywj Dutton hosts Legion district meeting 20 TO 40 OFF PIANOS ORGANS (Sale Definitely Ends Oct. 4) PHONE 727-0919 DUTTON Representatives of attend, Olsen said. "The Music Family" NICHOLLS MUSIC CENTRE 5,4 Ave Grert My MT the 12 American Legion posts and 12 American Legion Auxiliaries that make up Montana American Legion District No.

8 will attend the annual fall district meetings Saturday at the Dutton American Legion Hall, according to Martin N. Olsen, Dutton post commander. In addition to Dutton, representatives of the three Great Falls posts and posts in Choteau, Fort Benton, Augusta, Fairfield, Geraldine, Power, Fort Shaw and Cascade will Registration is at 10 a.m. Ruddy Reilly of Great Falls will conduct a veterans benefits information workshop at 10:30. Louis Fuhringer of Dutton, Montana Department vice commander, will speak at a joint Legion-Auxiliary banquet at noon.

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Entries will be judged by an impartial panel chosen from the community, entries become the property of the Great Falls TRIBUNE and may be used in part or in entirety in future promotions. Entries must be in by October 15, 1986 and winners will be announced in the TRIBUNE and by mail on October 20, 1986. The prizes are Continental Airlines stand-by tickets good for one year from issuance. TRIBUNE employees and their families are not eligible. MAIL YOUR ENTRY TO: Great Falls TRIBUNE P.O.

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