Sight & Insight

When Bonifacio Yturbide was three, a severe illness left him permanently blind. But Bonifacio, the son of Basque immigrant parents, had a good mind and a strong will. As he grew up, he found that insight could be at least a partial substitute for sight. "One thing that some blind persons ... do is to withdraw within themselves. I don't agree with this," he decided. Instead, he dug in hard at school work and activities; in his senior year at Reno (Nev.) high school he made a straight-A record and was elected president of his class.

In 1945, competing with 14,491 students across the U.S., Bonifacio won one of 117 college scholarships awarded by the Pepsi-Cola Co. Raymond I. Smith, manager of Reno's No. I gambling house, Harold's Club, chipped in for side expenses. Bonifacio went to the University of Nevada in Reno, prepared for law school by majoring in political science, became a good dancer, a fine chess player, the star of the university debating team, and a popular man-about-campus.

In class, Bonifacio took some notes with Braille stylus & slate, but mainly he relied on his memory. He earned A grades in all courses, all four years; it was the first such scholastic record established at the University of Nevada in 17 years. Last week at commencement, the eyes of 227 classmates were on blind Bonifacio as he received Nevada's highest scholastic honor, the Herz Gold Medal.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.