Phoenix Barfuss

Recently we posted a feature on the Assistive Technology Lab’s work to put a two-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy into a wheelchair that fits her. Assistive Technology Lab Coordinator Stan Clelland discussed this and other work done at the Assistive Technology Lab here at the CPD during a radio interview with  Craig Hislop of KVNU radio. It aired on the “For the People” program on  KVNU News/Talk 610 on June 8.

A link to the interview appears below. You can also scroll down and read the transcript.

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Transcription – Stan Clelland and Craig Hislop

Stan: My pleasure.

Do you know someone who is making a significant difference in the lives of people with disabilities in Utah?  Here is an opportunity for you to honor them.  The Utah Developmental Disabilities Council (UDDC) is seeking nominations of deserving individuals from the Utah community to be recognized by the Council during their annual meeting in September, 2009. 

Nominations are available in the following categories:

 Self-Advocate of the Year:  A self-advocate is a person with a developmental disability who has spoken up for themselves and others.

Volunteer of the Year:   A volunteer is someone who has been an advocate but is not being paid to do the advocacy.

Legislator of the Year:  This is an opportunity to recognize a Legislator who has been proactive for the disability community.

Parent of the Year:  This is an opportunity to recognize a parent who has been a leading advocate.

Media Representative of the Year:  This award can recognize someone who has helped spread a positive image in the news.

Educator of the Year:  This award can recognize someone’s contribution to the education of those with disabilities.

Adult Sibling of the Year:  This is a chance to recognize an adult – 18 or over –who is supporting their brother or sister with a disability. 

Child Sibling of the Year:  This is a way to recognize a sibling – 17 or younger – who has contributed to the life of their brother or sister with a disability.

Employer of the Year:  This is an opportunity to recognize an employer for employing people with developmental disabilities.

Nomination forms can be found online or you can contact the UDDC office at 1-801-533-3965 or 1-800-333-8824 to request a copy of the form.  The deadline for nominations is July 31st.  Please send nominations by regular mail, email, or fax: 

                                    Utah Developmental Disabilities Council

                                    155 South 200 West, Suite 100

                                    Salt Lake City, UT 84101

                                    Email:  bemartin@utah.gov

                                    Fax:  1-801-533-3968

The USU students' rocket was test launched in April.

Bowen Masco works at the CPD, providing technical support for the Early Childhood Alternative Teacher Preparation program. In his other life he does rocket software. Recently he was involved in an engineering team that did something so cool, we just have to talk about it. He was on Utah State University’s 27-member rocket team when it won the grand prize in NASA’s University Student Launch Initiative competition. Again.

Bowen was one of three students who were on last year’s USU rocket team, when it won the same prize in the same competition. Both years, the team made a reusable rocket from components that cost less than $5000 and designed it to go exactly one mile up before turning and coming back to the ground. As part of the competition, they communicated with the public, wrote a report and published it on the Web. (Bowen built and maintained their website.) And their reward for winning? They were invited to watch the launch of the space shuttle Endeavor last November.

“It was incredible,” he said. “It was a night launch. We were as close as people are allowed to get. … We were looking right at the pad.”

They had the same vantage point as the press corps, three miles away. They still felt the blast from the launch. “You’re three miles away, you see the flames, and then all the sudden, whoosh!”

This year, the USU team won the same competition and will receive $5000 and another invitation to a shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center this fall. In addition to his work on the website, Bowen wrote software that took measurements, crunched data and opened the rocket’s flaps that slowed it down so it could hit the one-mile-up point in the sky.

“Bowen was a critical person on the team,” said Stephen A. Whitmore, faculty mentor for USU’s senior design team. “Without him we couldn’t have done what we did.”

The rocket is the subject of several YouTube videos, including one shot from a camera mounted on the rocket and another detailing the project from design to launch.

The CPD appreciates what Bowen does here, too. “I’m just really thrilled that we have someone with his capabilities,” said Marlene Deer, who directs the program where he works.

The Early Childhood Alternative Teacher Preparation Program provides distance education to prospective early childhood special education teachers. Because of the program, these students are able to work on licensing requirements from off-campus locations in rural Utah. Bowen is working on cutting-edge software that, when it is done, will allow the program’s staff to observe teachers by robotic video camera. He also provides technical support.

He will leave the CPD in a few months to focus on graduate school.

Bowen Masco

Jeff Sheen and his laptop at the KOA in Missoula

When times get tough, the tough get creative.

CPD Training and Development Specialist Jeff Sheen really wanted to attend the Accessible Outdoor Recreation Areas, Programs, and Facilities workshop last month. So did CPD Research Scientist Keith Christensen. The conference would be a great place to network with potential partners and learn more about making recreation accessible to everyone. The subject interests them both.

But they did not want to spend a lot of money. Like many other organizations, the CPD and Utah State University have absorbed some serious budget cuts. The three-day conference was in Missoula, Montana, which meant two nights’ hotel stay plus travel costs. Since both men like camping, they decided it would be fun to find out just how cheaply they could travel.

They settled on the Missoula KOA campground. It had shower facilities, and at $25 a night it was a real savings over a motel. They further cut costs by taking a hybrid car from the Utah State University motor pool.

So they attended the conference, sponsored by MonTECH and the Montana Disability and Health Program at the University of Montana Rural Institute. It was well worth it, Sheen said. The campground had free wi-fi Internet, which was a real benefit since he could not find a network to log onto at the conference. He and Christensen played nine-hole miniature golf on a tiny course after hours. And the conference provided good information and great contacts. “There are some projects that are going to come out of our time there.”

“It was a fun first experience,” Christensen said. The KOA probably should not be the new standard for university travel, but in the right place and the right season, he said he’d do it again.

Some of the other conference-goers were surprised to find out the guys from USU were camping. One offered them her backyard for next time. “That’d be even cheaper,” Sheen said.

For others who might want to stay at a KOA Sheen leaves this advice: Bring a towel. The campground provides showers but no towels.

Fortunately, he was able to buy one.

Ross Menlove

CPD employee Ross Menlove was awarded the Janette Misaka Student Council for Exceptional Children (SCEC) Student of the Year.

Ross served on the SCEC’s state board for two years, and was Utah State University’s chapter president in the 2007/08 academic year. As this year’s  Child Advocacy Network Coordinator, he lobbied for children with disabilities in Washington, DC.

At the CPD he coordinates the Top Sports Activities program, finding volunteers who can come work with the children who participate. Forty to fifty families are involved, he said.

Working both at the center and with the SCEC has helped him provide opportunities for increasing education for children with disabilities, he said.

This spring he graduated from Utah State University with a dual major in special education and elementary education. Ross will start teaching at Sunrise Elementary in the fall. He will also continue coordinating Top Sports Activities.