HUDSON, NC (December 7, 2016)…Being deaf has never stopped 43-year-old Cameron Wright Jr., of Rockingham, N.C., from doing what he wants to do. Now he can add completion of Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute’s Truck Driver Training Program to his list.
Wright, who has been deaf since birth, recently completed the 9-week program, which was administered in partnership with Richmond Community College. By his side through the entire experience was interpreter Carolyn Everett of Morganton and Tuesday Sigmon, coordinator of Disability Services at CCC&TI.
“It means a lot to see a student graduate and be successful,” Sigmon said, adding that having a deaf student in CCC&TI’s Truck Driver Training Program was uncharted territory. “It clearly shows us that for people with disabilities – those obstacles are what we see, but not what they see.”
Wright, who is the first deaf student to complete CCC&TI’s Truck Driver Training Program, plans to drive a truck for his family’s plastic recycling business in Rockingham. Thanks to his father teaching him to drive at an early age, the driving came easy, he said.
His instructor, Jacob Rhodes, said it didn’t take long before he realized that Wright knew trucks and would make an excellent student.
“He caught on really well,” Rhodes said. “I showed him what I wanted him to do, and he did it.”
Wright said he hopes his success in the program will encourage other deaf students to pursue their goals.
“Other deaf people need to know that they can do it,” he said. “All you need is a team that’s willing to work with you.”
It was a new experience for his interpreter as well, who had worked with other students for CCC&TI, but never a Truck Driver Training student.
“We had to develop some new types of signs for different parts of the truck,” she said, adding that she now knows the various parts of a tractor-trailer.
For more information about Disability Services at CCC&TI, which provides support services and accommodations to ensure that qualified students are able to access the institution and its programs, call 828-726-2716 on the Caldwell Campus or 828-297-5239 on the Watauga Campus or visit www.cccti.edu.
For more information on registering for Truck Driver Training call 828-726-2380.