By Joe Orovic
The jubilant crowd of almost 5,000 people hushed. A sea of blue caps and gowns parted from the aisle as two graduates, one smiling behind sunglasses, the other’s tongue dangling from a gaping mouth, ambled up the steps. The name “William Richards” boomed from The Theater at Madison Square Garden’s speakers and the crowd stood and applauded, letting out a 10-second roar. Then the two crossed the stage, where the college president shook one graduate’s hand and patted the other’s head. For that moment, a man and his dog stole the show.
Amidst the cheers, smiles and tears of the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s graduation, 50-year-old Willie Richards and his seeing-eye dog, Victoria, both received associates degrees in early education June 1.
“All the hard work adds up to this,” said Richards, fresh off the stage and still gripping his diploma while the graduation ceremony returned to the conventional: a fresh face shaking hands and grabbing diploma, waving to cheering families and moving off stage to make way for the next fresh face. “I’m on top of the world.” The journey to this muggy afternoon was much longer than the walk across the stage.
Richards suffered a detached retina 15 years ago, leaving him permanently blind. It ended his job at a law firm and left him deeply depressed. “It took me a long time to accept that I was blind,” he said. But “with the help and blessings of God,” Richards was able to gather himself and start over.
He enrolled at Lighthouse International, which trains the blind to lead more productive lives. Richards had considered going back to school, but it wasn’t possible until Victoria came along. “Because of her, I had the mobility to come to college,” he said, patting Victoria, who also wore a cap and gown. (She dresses for birthday parties too, with costumes ranging from Tinkerbell to a ballerina). His biggest obstacle wouldn’t be mobility though.
Most school materials aren’t designed with the visually impaired in mind. Knowing this, Richards said he chose B.M.C.C., Downtown’s hub for associate degrees, partly because of their reputation for helping disabled students. Volunteers from the school’s Disabilities Services office would scan all of his required texts into electronic documents and store them on portable computer memory. Richards would then use a program called Jaws, which would read the texts back to him and allow him to annotate along the way. Richards credits the students and faculty for his success as well. But Richards’ face beams when talking about one classmate in particular – valedictorian Monica Woweries.
“She deserves an honorable mention in all of this,” he said. Woweries shared her 4.0-grade-point-average-earning brain with Richards, even helping him in painting class. Richards smiled and said, “Imagine that? A blind man painting?” He got an A in the class.
In fact, despite his impairment, Richards did well throughout his college stint. His final G.P.A. will be between 3.7 and 3.9 and he graduated with six awards in total, including the Dean’s List. For Richards, graduation is only the beginning.
He plans to write children’s books, hoping to be published. He also would like to teach youngsters, and mentor others. And like a true best friend, he plans of having Victoria with him the whole way.
“I have great appreciation for the help from God and reverse God,” he says. That’s “God” spelled backwards.
