World Trade Center Survivor To Speak At CWU

May 10, 2005

Contact: Robert Lowery (509-963-1487/Fax 509-963-2301/E-mail: loweryr@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Michael Hingson and his guide dog Roselle gained international attention when the yellow labrador guided him from his office on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center to safety following the Sept. 11 attack.

A guide dog user for more than 40 years, Hingson now serves as national public affairs director for Guide Dogs for the Blind. Its mission is to create lifelong partnerships of trust and teamwork between people with vision loss and their guide dogs.

Hingson and Roselle will make the keynote presentations at Central Washington University's Disability Awareness Week 2005 on Thursday, May 12. At 3 p.m., Hingson will discuss "Trust: A New Definition in the Wake of 9-11." His 7 p.m. presentation is titled "Out of the Ashes: Learning to Serve in a Changing World."

Both are free and open to the public, and will be held in the Samuelson Union Building (SUB) Chavez Theatre. They're designed to focus on the real lessons of 9-11, which Hingson says are the importance of strong values, trust, teamwork, courage to face change and the power of the human-animal bond.

The presentations will be part of a weeklong series of Disability Awareness Week 2005 events, sponsored by the university's disability support services office and CWU student organization A.B.L.E. (access, belonging, learning, equality), that will take place through May 13 in the SUB Yakama Room on the Ellensburg campus (unless otherwise noted).

Wednesday, the high school transition conference, "Is There School After High School?" will be held from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the SUB Theatre, while the National Alliance for Mental Illness will make a 1 p.m. presentation;

Thursday, at 9 a.m., the canine-assistance program "Paws with a Cause" will be discussed, as a lead in to Hingdon's presentations; and

Disability Awareness Week 2005 concludes on Friday with a presentation in Black 201 on community resources and a second on "Dealing with AD/HD," in Hertz 119, both are scheduled for 11 a.m.

For more information about the weeklong event, or for persons of disability to arrange for reasonable accommodation, call (509) 963-2171, or (for the hearing impaired) TDD (509) 963-2143.