E.C. Glass graduating senior sees past her disability

Georgie Sydnor likes having a computer program that will read to her the words on the screen and reply to her keystrokes. On the other hand, she’s not a fan of the way the female voice responds to her attempts to navigate a tricky task.

“She sounds so bored ... she sounds like she is sick of me,” Georgie jokes, mocking the computer’s flat tones.

Fortunately, she usually has other computer-voice options, such as a squeaky child voice to make her friends laugh or the Australian guy who sounds “freakin’ amazing.”

Most students at E.C. Glass High School read from bound textbooks and take notes on lined paper. Georgie, who is blind, uses her ears and fingers together with voice and braille technologies to excel in school. In a class of 351 seniors, she ranks 13th. Monday is her last school day at Glass; she graduates Saturday.

Last week, the school honored Georgie for winning the Virginia High School League’s Andrew Mullins Courageous Achievement award, which each year honors one Virginia student who has overcome obstacles while contributing to school activities. In her case, that’s everything from Glass Theatre to the school book club and a half dozen more groups.

Guidance counselor Lonnie Hoade said Georgie demands to be held to the highest standards, even when she’s feeling normal teenage frustrations.

“It would have been very easy for Georgie to kick back and say, ‘I need this’ or ‘I can’t do that,’” Hoade said. She added that Georgie even brought up the idea of taking driver’s education, before her mother talked her out of it.

Georgie navigates school and life via a combination of smarts, tech savvy, a little help from her friends and a heaping dose of humor.

Besides Advanced Placement classes in physics, government, Spanish and literature and composition, she is enrolled in Jim Ackley’s Acting II class, which is limited to upperclassmen.

For her senior acting showcase, she put together a monologue, pretending to be an E.C. Glass theater student who can’t see that she lacks singing and dancing talents.

She first demonstrates her character’s “abilities,” belting “Seventy-six Trombones” from “The Music Man” and leaping in the air, tripping intentionally. In a sudden moment, she comes to a realization, the reason she has been overlooked for parts.

“Oh I get it — I’m good, I’m too good!” Georgie proclaims, her farce setting off a gale of laughter among her classmates.

All throughout high school, she has taken part in Glass Theatre productions. She’s sung, danced and memorized lines for chorus line roles in everything from “The Music Man” to “Sweeney Todd.”

She said it’s not that she wants to be a professional actor; she just likes trying out fun activities.

“I’d like to learn to play a musical instrument,” Georgie said, looking ahead to the possibilities for college.

Pam Sydnor, Georgie’s mother, said that her daughter was born with a condition called Peter’s Anomaly that left her without sight. A later operation granted her just a tiny fraction of vision in one eye.

Still, Pam Sydnor knew early on that Georgie could and would think beyond what was given to her.

“Before the age of 3, she was singing the alphabet backward,” her mother recalled, amused at the memory. “It’s not going to be: Is she capable? It’s: Are people going to be capable of accommodating her? The Lynchburg City Schools did a really brilliant job.”

At Glass, Georgie uses a device called a BrailleNote, basically a personal computer based on touch, rather than sight. She can type notes using a shorthand keyboard and read information by way of a refreshable Braille display with plastic dots that raise and lower based on the words on the “screen”. It also holds many of her books for class and serves as her planner/agenda.

Kit Burnett, who teaches students with visual impairments for the LAUREL Regional Program, spends a period with Georgie each day and pushes her to go beyond her comfort zone as she prepares to head to the College of William and Mary in the fall.

On a recent day, Burnett had Georgie navigate a voice menu on a regular laptop in order to scan a paper document listing addresses for various buildings on campus. This is a little tricky for Georgie, but Burnett explained that it’s getting harder to come up with challenges.

“We sort of ran out of things to do,” Burnett said, adding that Georgie has mastered many of the technologies and skills Burnett set out to teach her. “I used to provide her with so many things, and now, she is able to get it herself.”

Later in the day, after lunch, Georgie came to a disappointing realization: She had left her giant peanut butter-oatmeal-chocolate cookie downstairs in the drama classroom.

She finagles a hall pass and permission for her friend Elizabeth Patterson to help her scout the room for the missing treat.

Getting there is no problem for Georgie, who has memorized the corridors of the school so well that she’s able to give tours to new students and returning alumni.

Even when she doesn’t see friends and teachers in the halls at E.C. Glass, they call out to her and she answers back. Hoade, for one, says that she will miss the sound of Georgie bellowing her name down the hall.

As they make their way down the stairs, the two girls discuss what they will do if they find out the cookie is in the trash. Georgie is for fishing it out, because the cookie is double bagged. Elizabeth thinks that’s a bad idea, regardless.

Fortunately, Elizabeth spots the bag sitting on a table in the drama room.

Out in the hall again, Georgie leaps up in the air and pirouettes, cookie in hand, her quest complete.

Like Hoade, Elizabeth said she has grown fond of Georgie, who she describes as spunky and full-of-life —sarcastic, but also warm and personable. Once you get know her, she is really fun to hang out with, Elizabeth said.

“The tough thing is kind of an act.”