History was made at the state capitol Friday and it doesn't have anything to do with legislation. For the first time in Arkansas, students from Little Rock's Blind and Deaf School served as pages on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Nineteen-year-old Jerica Floyd and 18-year-old Ryheem Brown were working Friday, working in a silent world. A world full of hustle and bustle they just don't hear, as the House of Representatives passes new state laws all around them.
They spoke with Today's THV through sign language interpreter, Julie Lowe.
Brown says, "Sometimes I made a mistake but I thought I did pretty good"
Floyd says, "When I went in on the floor I was a little bit nervous!"
Floyd and Brown are the first deaf students to serve as House pages. In case you're wondering what exactly a page does, here's chief of pages Judy Glidewell.
Glidewell says, "Each representative has a black switch, this is the page light if they need a page to run an errand to pick up copies from the printer."
The students watched as the light board displayed which representatives needed something; and jumped to comply.
Floyd says, "They explained that we weren't to walk in front of the representatives but to come behind them and they were very nice to us when we brought them papers."
Floyd and Brown are trailblazers, you see after this week, every Friday throughout the session more students from their school will volunteer as pages.
Brown says, "I was very excited about that being the first deaf in history to be there, it's really amazing. I feel maybe people will be impressed with what we can do."
And with what they will go ON to do; Floyd and Brown are both seniors who start college next fall. Who knows, maybe one day they'll be back to sit on the House floor as Representatives.
Representative Richard Carroll of North Little Rock helped arrange the students becoming pages. Carroll's seven year old son is also hearing impaired, but he's still too young to be a page. You have to be twelve.
