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Deaf students meet, make friends | statesmanjournal.com | Statesman Journal
Students at Oregon School for the Deaf eagerly signed with friends and waved at teachers during the back-to-school barbecue Monday.
About 115 students from around the state will return to the campus today for the first day of school.
Jazmine Smith, 12, can't wait. Summer is boring, she said, because she's surrounded by hearing people. Often she feels left out.
"Here I feel like finally I'm with deaf people," she said.
"I have so many friends here."
Fifth-grader Tim Klepzig was desperate to know what that feels like.
"All the way here he's been saying 'Starting tomorrow? I put things in my backpack. I want to start tomorrow,'" said his mom Cleo Klepzig.
The Klepzig family moved from Montana to Independence last week so the fifth-grader could attend the Oregon School for the Deaf. He was in a mainstream school with no other deaf children.
"He's never had a real friend he could relate to," Cleo Klepzig said. "We've come a long way."
The school is the place where deaf students find brothers and sisters outside their families, said Dorothy Johnson, president of the OSD Alumni Association.
"People cherish and remember their friends from Oregon School for the Deaf for all their lives," she said.
OSD director Patti Togioka agreed, saying, "This school is the roots of the deaf community."
This year the school will mark its 140th birthday with activities including a weekend of events Sept. 16-18. Typically the reunions draw hundreds of graduates and organizers expect at least 300 to 400 this year.
"We're very proud of this place," Togioka said. "What an honor to be a part of it."
Spokeswoman Sharla Jones related a little of the school's history to parents and students during the picnic. Principal William Smith, she said, looked all around Oregon for deaf children to come to one school in 1870.
"That was a beautiful idea," she said, "and it still is."
Students at Oregon School for the Deaf eagerly signed with friends and waved at teachers during the back-to-school barbecue Monday.
About 115 students from around the state will return to the campus today for the first day of school.
Jazmine Smith, 12, can't wait. Summer is boring, she said, because she's surrounded by hearing people. Often she feels left out.
"Here I feel like finally I'm with deaf people," she said.
"I have so many friends here."
Fifth-grader Tim Klepzig was desperate to know what that feels like.
"All the way here he's been saying 'Starting tomorrow? I put things in my backpack. I want to start tomorrow,'" said his mom Cleo Klepzig.
The Klepzig family moved from Montana to Independence last week so the fifth-grader could attend the Oregon School for the Deaf. He was in a mainstream school with no other deaf children.
"He's never had a real friend he could relate to," Cleo Klepzig said. "We've come a long way."
The school is the place where deaf students find brothers and sisters outside their families, said Dorothy Johnson, president of the OSD Alumni Association.
"People cherish and remember their friends from Oregon School for the Deaf for all their lives," she said.
OSD director Patti Togioka agreed, saying, "This school is the roots of the deaf community."
This year the school will mark its 140th birthday with activities including a weekend of events Sept. 16-18. Typically the reunions draw hundreds of graduates and organizers expect at least 300 to 400 this year.
"We're very proud of this place," Togioka said. "What an honor to be a part of it."
Spokeswoman Sharla Jones related a little of the school's history to parents and students during the picnic. Principal William Smith, she said, looked all around Oregon for deaf children to come to one school in 1870.
"That was a beautiful idea," she said, "and it still is."