Fred L. Kiker, son of Mr. J.T. Kiker of Burnsville township, is a member of the graduating class of Duke University this year. He is totally blind, and is the first blind person who has graduated from this institution. Notwithstanding his handicap, he has made an excellent record in college, is popular with the students, and has taken his full share in the life of the college. Before entering Duke, he was for several years a student in the blind institution at Raleigh. He expects to enter the ministry, and those who know him predict unusual success for him.
The daily papers a few days ago carried the following account of Mr. Kiker’s student life: Durham, N.C., June 5—Though handicapped by blindness since babyhood, Fred L. Kiker of Peachland, N.C., a senior at Duke University, is graduating with the class of 1925 and with exceptional honors.
Kiker is a ministerial student and will devote his life to active religious work; and as a deep student and of a natural philosophical turn of mind, with a bounteous supply of humor, the young man gives promise of a successful and serviceable life.
Kiker has never seen the beautiful campus on which he has spent four years. He has but heard the voices of his professors and fellow students. Few students on campus, however, know it so well and are acquainted with more students than Kiker. In fact, so natural are Kiker’s actions, due tohis familiarity with almost every foot of the campus, many freshmen see him for months without realizing his handicap. His blindness, due to paralysis of the optical nerves, leaves the appearance of his eyes natural.
Kiker has made an exceptional scholastic record, and has not avoided difficult courses. Always getting cooperation from his fellow students, he has had readers in plentiful numbers; and he never forgets anything he has heard. He has a vast store of anecdotes and an almost inexhaustible supply of information on many extraordinary subjects.
Before coming to Trinity college four years ago, Kiker spent six years in the blind institution in Raleigh where he learned all the aids that modern science has given to persons thus handicapped.
He has been granted but few concessions, having asked for but few, and has done the work required of all students. He uses the typewriter with ease and rapidity and hand in formally written work that excels in appearance and quality.
All phases of college life have interested Kiker, and he has participated to the extent of his ability. Naturally, he has been unable to take part in athletics, but has made up for this in literary society and work of this nature. Duke university students have great respect and admiration for Kiker, the first blind student to ever complete a full course at the institution.
From the front page of The Messenger and Intelligencer, Wadesboro, N.C., July 11, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn97064505/1925-06-11/ed-1/seq-1/
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