High Hopes : ‘Impossible’ Not in Dictionaries at University for Gifted Retarded

“I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . .”

Listen, please.

Danny McNet has something he needs to say. Bear with me, his eyes seem to plead, don’t turn away so fast. This is important; you have to hear me. The look on his face makes it clear that nobody could ever be as frustrated with his severe speech impediment as he is.

“Time to go back to class, Danny,” says a voice across the room. He keeps at it.

“I . . . I . . . I, excuse me,” he says, managing to get out complete words just long enough to apologize. With a dozen false starts for every word, he struggles on.

He is proud of what he has accomplished so far in life, he is able to say after a few minutes. His job with a salvage company in Fullerton. The possibility of going into business with some friends. For a young man with multiple handicaps--he must deal with mental retardation as well as the speech problem--Danny is a success.

“But . . . I . . . want . . . to . . . grab . . . for . . . bigger . . . things,” he says, wrestling with every syllable, grimacing involuntarily over some words as if the process causes him physical pain. “I . . . don’t . . . just . . . want . . . to . . . be . . . known . . . as . . . some . . . person . . . that . . . collected . . . off . . . of . . . Social . . . Security . . . and . . . SSI . . . all . . . his . . . life.

“The . . . biggest . . . dream . . . I . . . have . . . is . . . to . . . be . . . a . . . singer . . . and . . . a . . . songwriter. I’m . . . going . . . to . . . have . . . a . . . career . . . in . . . music. I . . . don’t . . . care . . . if . . . it’s . . . a . . . short . . . career . . . or . . . a . . . long . . . career. I’m . . . going . . . to . . . do . . . it.”

Impossible? Don’t even speak that word here at Hope University/Unico National College in Anaheim. The folks here don’t know what it means, nor do they want to find out. Hang around with them for a while and you’ll forget it ever existed.

They have a saying around this place: “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”

Listen again. Through the open door of that classroom, a strong male voice rings out earnestly, with hardly a hesitation:

Then sings my soul,

My savior, God, to thee,

How great thou art,

How great thou art. . . .

Do you hear it? That’s Danny McNet.

On Sunday afternoon, McNet and 11 other aspiring stars will make their official debut at the Hope University/Unico National College version of “Star Search.” After a final competition next month, three winners will receive one-year scholarships to the school worth $1,800 each. But there will be no losers.

“We’re going to find a way to get all of them in here somehow,” says Doris Walker, founder and executive director of the school. And when she says she’ll find a way, believe her. So far, she always has.

All of the contestants, like the dozen students already attending the school, are trainable mentally retarded. Many have other obstacles to fight as well. Some are blind; others can walk only with crutches. For some, the problem began before they were born. Others suffered brain damage during birth, or afterward. It hardly matters now that they are adults--the kind of adults whose prospects usually range from a lifetime in an institution, at worst, to a job in a sheltered workshop, at best.

“Star Search” contestant Linda Enderson now spends her days in such a workshop, managed by the Orange County Assn. for Retarded Children.

“What do you do there?” prompts her mother, Lou.

“Putting 12 screws in a package,” she says.

“What else?”

“I punch holes.”

On Sunday, Enderson will sing “Let Me Be There.” She already participates in square-dancing with the college’s Discovery Twirlers. “She’s always enjoyed music,” her mother says.

The search marks the first time that students are being actively recruited for Hope University--the only private fine arts college in the world for the gifted mentally retarded.

Walker started using music with mentally handicapped students almost by accident. She studied business administration in college but gave up on that career after years as an executive secretary in a large corporation. After going back to school, she got a job as a teacher at an Orange County high school for the handicapped in 1969. “When I arrived in the spring, here was my name, and across from it it said ‘Music.’

“There was hardly anything I could research on the subject,” she says. “Over the summer, I read four books. I went into the classroom in the fall and never opened them again.”

The students “weren’t supposed to be able to do anything,” Walker says. “But I began to realize they could. I didn’t have anything to go by, so I just kept trying things. I failed a lot, but I’d pick myself up and try something else.”

After a decade, Walker decided there were too many restrictions in the public schools. “I found it impossible to be creative in music,” she says. So she formed the nonprofit Hi Hopes Identity Discovery Foundation in 1979 and founded the college a year later. Students found out about the school by word of mouth.

Until last fall, attendance was limited because the college was headquartered in “two small rooms in the back of a shopping center,” Walker says. But now, thanks to the Unico National Club, a nationwide men’s service organization, the school has a campus--formerly the Euclid Street Baptist Church building--with room for 100 students. The club bought the church building and now leases it to the college for $1 a year.

You’ve heard of universities without walls? This place is a little different. It has no ceilings. Sure, there’s something overhead to keep the rain out. But in a more important sense, there are no upper limits here. Students are encouraged to attend as long as they can benefit, Walker explains. For some, that may be a lifetime.

“Some will add enrichment to their lives and be better able to cope. They might go into the community in some sort of work placement,” Walker says. “But if a person will benefit by continuing, they’ll stay here.”

“I don’t put boundaries on these students,” says Carol Teunissen Stone, head of the vocal music department. “If you don’t, they won’t.” The other day, for example, she asked a class to sing an aria in Italian, exactly as she would with her more normal students. Unlike some of those other students, however, these had no qualms about attempting such a feat.

In the background at Sunday’s show will be the stars of the college: the Hi Hopes. For these nine performers, the dream has already come true. This time, they will be the backup band and leave the spotlight to the newcomers.

“We don’t tell (the contestants) they’ll be a star,” Walker says. “But hey, none of these kids were when they started. You never know.”

The Hi Hopes have been featured in newspapers, Time and People magazines, on network and local television, even on Western Australia Radio. They have shared the bill with such stars as Bob Hope, Tammy Wynette and Liberace. They average 180 performances a year. This week, they traveled to Hollywood to appear in their first movie. They will play a small role as the band at a party in “Winnie,” a made-for-television movie about a mentally handicapped woman who spent much of her life in an institution.

When pianist-guitarist Ron Langloe of Grants Pass, Ore., joined the group in March, 1987, after a six-year wait, “the cameras were waiting for him,” remembers singer Bill Ouderkerken. “Mrs. Walker said: ‘This is not life, Ron. We’re in Anaheim now. You don’t see cameras here every day.’ ”

But the cameras haven’t gone away. The Hi Hopes, however, don’t seem to mind. They enjoy telling their stories, to one another and to other people.

“Hey, remember that girl in Vegas?” says Ouderkerken, whose specialty at Hi Hopes performances is going into the audience and hugging strangers. Often he tells them, “I love you.”

“She was in a wheelchair. She said nobody had ever said they loved her before,” he says sadly. “People were making fun of her just because she was in a wheelchair.”

“That’s not right,” says singer Mikki Davis. “Just because she’s handicapped. . . .”

“Some people do that because they think they’re better than everybody else. But the truth is, they’re not,” says Lori Reyes, also a singer.

In classes such as music therapy, drama and voice, the Hi Hopes and their fellow students use music and other methods to express themselves, cope with the frustrations of the outside world, and even help others.

Their latest project, under the guidance of Jo Ann Quak, head of the music therapy department, is to write a series of songs that teach the rules of spelling and punctuation.

“We’ve received a grant from the Anaheim Arts Council to underwrite the recording of these songs,” Walker says. “They can be used to teach stroke victims, people with head injuries, young children, people who are illiterate. It’s exciting that our students would make this kind of contribution to society.”

Some of the students are learning those reading skills even as they write songs such as “Apostrophe S:”

Apostrophe S,

Apostrophe S,

What does it do and what does it show?

As they sing, the students hold up cards with personalized examples of the rule.

“How do we know those are Lori’s shoes?” Quak asks.

“Apostrophe S!” someone exclaims.

Another student quietly offers another explanation. “Who else could fit in them?” (Diminutive Lori is known around campus as “the little girl with the big voice.”)

The classes also give students a chance to talk about their feelings.

“What would you tell people who are handicapped who are afraid to try?” Quak asks a Monday afternoon class.

“If you believe in yourself, it can make the difference,” says Cathy Acton, who is a member of another of the college’s performing groups, the Discovery Singers. “Yeah. I believed in myself even though other people didn’t believe in me. It made all the difference in the world.”

“You can tell them you love them,” Ouderkerken says.

“What would you tell a person who was afraid to try something?” Quak asks.

“Don’t give up. Just keep trying,” Ouderkerken says.

“You’ve got to keep moving and motivating,” Reyes says. “If you make a mistake, well, try again.”

“If you leave it inside, it’s just going to hurt you. I mean, it’s going to eat you up,” Ouderkerken says.

“Help the handicapped,” says Richie Graves, another Hi Hopes singer. His enunciation isn’t perfect, but he can be understood. When Graves first came, no one could understand him, students and teachers say. But when they tell him he’s doing better, Graves beams with pride.

“Do you think, Richie, that when you go out to perform, that you really help other handicapped people?” Quak asks.

“Help the handicapped,” he repeats.

“And you inspire others?”

Graves nods.

“So I’m handicapped. Big deal,” Reyes joins in. “I mean, we all have handicaps.”

Paul Kuehn, singer and drummer with the Hi Hopes, has several. He’s blind, mentally handicapped and, unlike many of his classmates, he doesn’t express himself well in conversation.

But when he sings, he compensates. Kuehn’s voice resonates so deeply, so perfectly and with so much emotion that some listeners cry when they hear him. Others just get chills down their spines.

“When he sings ‘I’m Still Me,’ it just makes me cry,” Reyes says. “I can feel what he’s feeling.”

The song is a favorite of the Hope students, one of several songs they do that directly address the issue of disability and being “different.” They didn’t write it, but they understand it. When his classmates ask him to sing, Kuehn doesn’t need any arm-twisting.

. . . I’m still me,

Even though I don’t appear the same.

I’m still me,

So don’t turn away,

Love me this way,

I’m still me.

I still know how to trust someone,

I still know how to love.

I still know how to be a loyal friend . . . .

Kuehn has what Walker calls “a learning voice.” Other students can learn a great deal just by singing along. In rehearsals for Sunday’s talent show, his voice in the background was a guidepost for some of the newcomers.

Walker doesn’t believe that Kuehn will ever graduate from Hope. “He’s prodigiously talented, but he couldn’t fit into the work force in anything but a routine-type job,” she says. “That would be such a waste.”

And after 16 years of performing, he is still learning.

Drama instructor Paul Norling, who teaches at Hope in conjunction with the Stop-Gap drama therapy group, recalls a recent example.

“We were doing an improvisation, and Paul was supposed to be a chef. It’s hard for him to interact spontaneously. Someone complained about his food and said, ‘Your shrimp stinks!’ I asked him, ‘How do you feel about that?’ He boomed out, ‘My shrimp’s great! My shrimp’s great!’ It was such a surprise.”

Kuehn’s classmates take pride in another of his talents. When they call out the name of a song--just about any popular song--he can instantly tell them the artist and the year it was recorded.

“It’s like he has a computer in his head,” Ouderkerken says.

Kuehn is one of four students who are considered savants, with exceptional splinter skills that seem to compensate for their disabilities.

Gary Ahearn is another.

“He was in a workshop in L.A., and he sort of fell into the role of fixing things when they broke,” Walker recalls. “In one room there was an old broken-down organ, and he kept eyeing it every day. Finally, he asked if he could play it, and his teacher said, ‘OK, but it doesn’t work.’ After a little while, she suddenly heard someone playing a complicated classical piece. When she looked into the room and saw that it was Gary, she just about fainted.”

With 20 rooms and so few students, Hope’s new campus is still mostly empty. But Walker has plans for all the space, including half an acre of undeveloped land next to the buildings. “I dream of having a boutique where students can sell their arts and crafts, a restaurant they could operate themselves and even provide entertainment,” she says. “And on the half-acre, we’re going to put a living facility.”

One empty room is already designated as the research and development department. Walker says she wants to know more about how to tap her students’ potential. With very little to draw from in textbooks and research materials, she has been figuring it out as she goes along.

“It was such a giant step, moving from two rooms to this campus. The day we moved in, I sat here and told myself, ‘Your dream’s come true. Now you’d better start dreaming again.”

The Hope University/Unico National College “Star Search” is free and open to the public. The show will be held Sunday in the auditorium of the campus at 1408 S. Euclid Ave., Anaheim, beginning at 3 p.m. Another competition will be held in May. For more information about the show or the school, call (714) 778-4440.