For more than a year, he applied to teach at 40 schools in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but none would hire him.
One school even canceled an interview after finding out he was blind.
But Carroll County gave Gary LeGates a chance, and he stayed on for 30 years of teaching Latin and French in the county before retiring after this school year.
“This county gave me a chance to do something a lot of other counties wouldn?t let me do: They let a blind guy have a career,” LeGates, 56, said during a ceremony this week honoring this year?s retiring teachers.
Norris Wise, a former principal at Westminster Senior High School, hired LeGates, a graduate of McDaniel College and Penn State University, as Carroll?s first and only blind teacher.
“What kept me successful was that I approached it as if I was a normal teacher,” LeGates said as he sat Friday on a patio outside his Westminster home next to his wife, Ninette, 55, who is also blind, and his guide dog, a golden retriever named Trinket.
But technology also helped LeGates, who used a computer program that allowed him to project his notes onto a screen after typing them into his laptop.
Jeff Seaman, who graduated from Westminster in 1993 after taking four years of Latin with LeGates, told his father how impressed he was with LeGates? ability to recognize students? voices.
“My son said that it was amazing how, during the first day of class and only 10 minutes after taking roll call, he recognized a person?s voice,” said John Seaman, who now serves as the school?s principal and worked with LeGates for 13 years.
“I taught for a lot of years and wished I could have recognized students looking at them in the face.”
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Gary LeGates was so frustrated during his job hunt, he wrote this poem:
We?re impressed, for your credentials are the best,
But we?re afraid that your blindness
Might get our system in a mess
And cause us acute distress.
