Paula Thomas

	Sign In Sign-Up

Paralympian stays 'up' after fall

By PAULA THOMAS
AccessLife Newswire (Posted Sept. 22, 2000.)

"People fall down. Winners get up" is the lifelong motto of Bonnie St. John Deane, winner of two bronze medals in skiing events during the 1984 Paralympics in Innsbruck, Austria.
A birth defect resulted in amputation of her right leg at age 5, which did not slow Deane down. In fact, at 16, she started her skiing career.
A friend asked her why "a poor, black, one-legged girl from the wrong side of the tracks" would even think about skiing, she recalled.
"The sport got in my blood," Deane replied.
Deane went on to win a silver medal in overall performance in the alpine ski events in the Paralympics and two bronze medals for slalom and giant slalom. "There was a patch of ice," she said. "All the skiers slipped and fell. I just didn't get up as fast as the gold medalist."
Mother motivates her

"My mother was a great inspiration. She used poetry to inspire herself and her children," Deane stated.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Deane also attended Oxford University, where she found "the books" to be amazing, as a Rhodes Scholar.
"I was like any other college student," she told a group of students recently at Abilene Christian University . "I fell asleep over my books and would awaken to find drool on my cheek, just like college kids do today."
With successful careers in international finance and sales and marketing under her belt, she was named director for Human Capital Issues at the White House National Economic Council and also taught basic economics at Oxford.
Through it all, Dean has gone through a lot of failure in her life. "I told myself it doesn't matter and went on with life," she said.
Challenges continue

Whether addressing students or speaking at a United Way of Abilene fundraising banquet, this wife, mother and author still keeps her mother's inspiration close to heart.
"Poetry has power," she said.
Paula Thomas is a freelance writer for AccessLife Newswire who lives in Abilene, Texas. She can be reached at thomaspaula@aol.com.

Return to AccessLife Index Page

Contact Paula Main Page Novels Web Content Newspapers