Gov. Rick Perry gave the keynote address in the school gymnasium and challenged the students to not allow themselves to be defined by their disability.

"There's not a child in this room who can't dream the same dream as any child down the street at Austin High School or Bowie High School," Perry said.

But many students who come to Texas School for the Deaf struggled in traditional schools, often feeling suffocated under the limitations imposed by their hearing loss.

For them, the anniversary was a chance to celebrate not just the school's progress, but their own, as well.

"We're celebrating 150 years of our culture, deaf culture. That's really important to us," said junior Christopher Kearney, the school's student body president.

"When I was in public school, I would pretty much hold everything inside. Now, I'm outgoing, because I have friends to communicate with," Kearney said. "I don't have to hold anything back."

The school currently enrolls more than 450 students on its 67-acre South Austin campus, with educational programs for infants and students up to 21 years old.

In addition to elementary, middle and high schools, the school operates a special needs division for students with multiple disabilities and offers career and technology education and transitional support for high school graduates.

The school was conceived in the fall of 1856 when a man who was deaf, Matthew Clark, persuaded the Texas Legislature to grant between $5,000 and $5,500 to convert a farm smokehouse into a school for the "deaf and dumb" citizens of the state. That was the same year the Blind Institute, now the state School for the Blind and Visually Im- paired, was established.

That small tract just south of Town Lake remains part of the School for the Deaf's current campus.

The school had enrolled just three boys when it opened on Jan. 2, 1857, and Clark traveled on horseback through surrounding counties to find deaf children to come to the school and parents willing to send them.

Today, the Texas School for the Deaf has many second-generation students whose parents or other family members also attended the school.

Anita Dalla, a Class of 1939 alumna, was one of 15 members of her family to graduate from the school.

Some families relocate to Austin to allow their children to attend while living at home, and many graduates ultimately return to live in Austin. Because the school is here, they said, the city is more familiar to them and more adaptive to their needs.

But for all the ways the Texas School for the Deaf is unlike a traditional school, the graduates who returned Friday came back for the same reason anyone stays true to their school: They felt that their were lives were made better for having been there.

"For me, it was self-esteem and self-confidence, so I could go on and succeed at a public college," said Connie Sefcik-Kennedy, a Class of 1979 graduate who met her husband, Kent Kennedy, at the school. "It let me know I could succeed in any area."

By Matthew Obernauer
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/02/4deafschool.html