“We got psychedelic,” laughed Sam Kidd. “She wasn’t worried about what people thought.”

That’s the same attitude Whitney, now 17, and a junior at Frontier High School, has today.

She’s had her share of other students laughing at her.

“Some kids can be stupid,” she says.

But the self-assured teen doesn’t let that stop her.

“I don’t get a lot of people teasing me anymore because they know I will stand up to them,” said Kidd, through her interpreter, Celesta Crawford. “I’m not bothered by it.”

Instead, Kidd, left deaf from a bout with meningitis at 6 months old, approaches her life like any typical teen-ager.

She’s a cheerleader, always has her cell phone on hand for text messages, and knows a boy in Athens who she’s not sure whether or not to call her boyfriend.

But there are a few challenges.

There are probably a lot of students who try to say the dog ate their homework but few who could claim their dog ate their hearing aid.

“My dog likes anything with wax,” Kidd said. “It was pretty funny.”

And there are moments of isolation.

“A lot of people can’t talk to me because they don’t know how to sign,” Kidd said. “I have some friends who can, but sometimes I feel alone. There are times when my friends are just laughing and laughing and I have to keep tapping them on the shoulder and asking them what’s going on. I don’t really know if I’m missing something.”

She has taught most of her friends some sign language, including Kayla Amos, 16, who first met Whitney when they were both students at Phillips Elementary in Marietta.

Today, Kayla signs better than she does, Whitney said.

“We talk about everything,” said Amos, a student at the Washington County Career Center.

“Especially boys,” Kidd interjects.

“Whitney’s unique, she’s hilarious,” said Amos. “She’s probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. We’re best, best friends.”

The two are even teaching a free weekly class together at the New Matamoras branch of the Washington County Public Library, showing anyone interested the basics of sign language.

“I want to teach more people to communicate this way,” said Kidd. “I want the whole world to sign.”

At a class Thursday, as Kidd taught signs including “table” and “drink” to several parents and young children, she proved that things like a smile, never-ending patience and good humor really need no translation.

“If you make a three like this,” she joked, holding up three fingers, “you’re out of the class!”

The sign for three is a thumb and two fingers.

For Kidd, teaching seems to come naturally but she says learning hasn’t always been easy.

‘I don’t really like to read. It’s weird for me,” she said. “English isn’t my language. Sign is my language.”

Reading is often a challenge for the deaf, said Sam Kidd.

“People don’t understand that that’s the hardest concept,” he said. “It’s easier for us because we hear words repeated and repeated but they don’t have that. It’s difficult to understand.”

Since she was in the third grade at New Matamoras Elementary, Crawford has accompanied Whitney to all her classes and school activities, interpreting the words of the teacher and fellow classmates.

“She doesn’t have the advantage of having a voice so I’m her voice,” said Crawford. “I’m like a machine. I only interpret. I don’t give any opinions.”

With her hearing aid, Kidd can sometimes hear school bells, along with barking dogs and other loud noises, in her right ear. At times, when she’s cheering she can hear the referee’s whistle if it’s right next to her ear, she said.

But she admits cheerleading for her isn’t all about the game.

“I love to show off,” she said. “I like to fly, do the dances, the tumbling, gymnastics. I think I do pretty well.”

A background in dance and baseball as a child prepared her, said Sam Kidd.

Usually her coaches went out of their way to accommodate Whitney, he said, including a dance teacher who would allow her to stand directly in front of the speakers so she could feel the vibrations of the music.

Others weren’t as understanding, he said.

“It’s almost as if sometimes they’re afraid of her,” he said. “They may be innocent in it, but some people are just afraid of the handicap.”

Kidd said she looks forward to the day when she’s in an environment where being deaf isn’t looked at as a disability.

Her dream is to attend Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., a four-year liberal arts school for deaf and hearing-impaired students.

“There are 10,000 kids there who are all deaf,” she said. “I want to meet a lot of people. There I wouldn’t have to tap people on the shoulder to find out what was happening.”

Kidd wants to study either physical therapy or social work but may come back to the area after college.

“I do want to be in a deaf culture but I don’t want to be too far away,” she said. “I love my mom and dad.”

“But not Nick and Samantha,” she added, joking about her brother Nick, 19, and sister Samantha, 23.

Her parents and siblings learned sign language when Whitney became deaf and have since become advocates for their daughter, knowing the rights of deaf Americans backwards and forwards.

“You are your child’s best advocate,” said Sam Kidd. “No one will stand up for them like you will.”

The Frontier Local district has also always done whatever they could to help his daughter, Kidd said.

“I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about schools from other parents,” he said. “But not here. They’ve been wonderful.”

For the first time, there is an American Sign Language class being taught at Frontier High School, through a partnership with Washington State Community College, and Kidd said she hopes she soon won’t have to rely on writing notes to her classmates.

“I’d love to have more people to talk to,” she said. “But being deaf is awesome. I don’t remember hearing, so this is just my life.”

If you go

What: Sign language classes.

Where: New Matamoras branch of the Washington County Public Library.

When: 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursdays.

Cost: Free.

By Kate York
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/new32_218200621212.asp