Barbie Elliott, Secretary

Barbie is a Utah native, born completely blind with optic nerve hypoplasia. Her family has no history of blindness. In the 1930s and 40s, long before Barbie’s parents were even born her grandparents had positive experiences working with blind professionals. Her maternal grandmother worked for a blind journalist /teacher and her paternal grandfather worked with an attorney. Both of these men passed away long before Barbie was born, but these experiences helped her grandparents influence Barbie and her parents to believe that blindness was an obstacle rather than a barrier in developing and achieving dreams. Barbie’s family taught her not only to follow those dreams but to take responsibility for her life. She was expected to do the same household jobs as her sighted siblings and do them well. Her family worked hard to give her opportunities to participate in the same kinds of extracurricular activities such as girl scouts, piano lessons, bike riding and school clubs as other children her age. She learned that hard work and high expectations has more to do with success in life than having sight does. Barbie is the second completely blind person in the state of Utah to graduate from public schools having been mainstreamed in Kindergarten. She graduated with a bachelor of arts in music from Brigham Young University, married her college sweetheart Walt, and together they have 4 children. Barbie is a semiprofessional musician performing and recording original and popular music whenever she can. Barbie is currently working full-time as a home management teacher at the Utah Division of services for the blind and visually impaired. Because of the positive influence of blind professionals in her grand parents’ lives, and the lack of them in her own life, she believes that blind children and their families need positive successful blind role models and loves working with the blind people of Utah. In her spare time (which is rare with a house-full of kids, a full-time job,  and a husband to manage), she loves hiking, repelling, water skiing, ice and roller skating, reading, crocheting, and surfing the web to obtain knowledge and participating on social media