A Fine State President Steps Back: Michael Barber, the End of an Era

A Fine State President Steps Back: Michael Barber, the End of an Era

Braille Monitor
February 2015

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A Fine State President Steps Back
Michael Barber, the End of an Era
by Jim Omvig
From the Editor: Jim Omvig is a distinguished member who has been an active member of the National Federation of the Blind for almost fifty years. He has moved around the country to fulfill a number of Federation assignments, and he and his wife Sharon have returned to Iowa, where he continues to be active in the affiliate.
Jim is the author of several published works and a frequent contributor in these pages. In this article he offers a much-deserved thank you to Michael Barber, our immediate past president in Iowa. What Jim does not mention was the concern expressed by some about Michael serving as the president of our NFB affiliate, while simultaneously working as a staff member at the Iowa Department for the Blind. While it is essential that organizations of the blind maintain their independence from the agencies that exercise extraordinary power over our lives, this should not preclude Federationists from taking leadership roles in our chapters, affiliates, or in the private and state agencies created to serve the blind. Michael Barber proved once again that a person of character and strength can serve in both roles. Here is what Jim writes as his tribute to a fine man who has worked tirelessly for blind Iowans and blind people throughout the country:
In our younger days we humans frequently speak glowingly of the “Golden Years,” and we anticipate wonderful things as our time on this earth passes. For many of us, of course, these marvelous dreams come true, but for others, the gold can become more or less tarnished by the health issues which often accompany the aging process.
Such has been the case for retiring NFB of Iowa state president, Michael Barber of Des Moines. Mike is only sixty-five years old, but this past year has been extremely difficult for him. The gold truly has become tarnished.
His major health troubles began right after the 2013 National Convention in Orlando, when he passed out in a Gainesville, Florida, restaurant and had to be given CPR to survive. Testing and treatments over the next several months revealed that he suffers from a lung problem called Pulmonary Fibrosis, along with some heart issues.
Despite his illness, Mike has put his heart and soul into his presidential duties during this past year. But, as the October 2014 NFB of Iowa state convention approached, he and his wife Kim reasoned that, for his own well-being, as well as for the good of our Iowa affiliate, he should step down as state president, and we should find another high-quality Iowan to assume those rigorous presidential duties. He did so, and Donna Prime of Iowa City, Iowa, is our new state president. She assumed her duties on Sunday, October 19, 2014. Donna works for the Veterans Administration in Iowa City. She has been a medical secretary in the Iowa Regional Histocompatibility & Immunogenetics Laboratory for twenty-three years and has also been president of our Iowa City chapter for several years.
Like so many other Jernigan-trained blind Iowans, Michael Barber has a fascinating background. He was a student at the Iowa Commission for the Blind in 1967 and 1968. And if my speculation holds, he will be the very last Federation state president to have been personally trained and empowered by Dr. Kenneth Jernigan. It may well be that this is “the end of an era.”
Mike, along with many other very proud Iowans, had the distinct pleasure of being present in the spring of 1968 when, as Kenneth Jernigan was being presented with a presidential citation from Lyndon Johnson, the president’s representative proclaimed wisely, “If a person must be blind, it is better to be blind in Iowa than in any other place in the nation or the world!”
Like so many other blind Iowans from the sixties and seventies, Mike truly became empowered at that Jernigan “attitude factory” in Des Moines! He has had an interesting and varied career. He first worked for four-and-a-half years at the Iowa Department of Transportation as a transcriptionist. He then changed careers and worked as a manager in the Iowa vending program for fifteen years. He changed directions again and worked as the first totally blind banking service representative for the Norwest Company for about five-and-a-half years.
Finally, like so many of Kenneth Jernigan’s students, he began to feel the need to give back. He joined the staff of the Iowa Department for the Blind in 1996, and he worked there helping other blind people with sophisticated blindness technology for the next eighteen years. One of his proudest accomplishments while there is that he worked with Project Assist to produce tutorials for blind people.
During the twenty years Dr. Jernigan was in Iowa, the National Federation of the Blind of Iowa (NFBI) flourished. But, after he left in 1978, troubles arose, and those problems continued in one way or another for many years. By 2006 Mike Barber decided to run for the presidency in the earnest hope that he could restore order and bring the organization back to something like the proud heritage it had enjoyed since the glory days of the sixties.
As I said above, Mike has put his heart and soul into the task, and he has done a terrific job. The NFB of Iowa has truly flourished during the eight years of Mike’s presidency. He re-established good relations with the Iowa press, and he accomplished the same with the Iowa governor and legislature. In fact, in 2012, when the Iowa Department for the Blind could not get the state funding it needed from the legislature, Mike rallied NFBI members, along with members of the Iowa Council of the United Blind, to go to the legislature every day for weeks to work on funding. We were successful, and the department received even more state dollars than it had requested.
Mike also worked vigorously on activities inside the Federation. Through those eight years he got large numbers of blind Iowans to go to Baltimore to attend leadership seminars at the National Center. He also worked hard each year to encourage many Iowans to go to DC to participate in the Washington Seminar.
One of the fun things which happened during Mike’s presidency had to do with retiring Iowa US Senator Tom Harkin. Senator Harkin was one of those strongly opposed to the Federation’s effort in Congress to eliminate the payment of subminimum wages to people who are blind or otherwise disabled. In an effort to help change his thinking, Mike got twenty-six blind Iowans to picket one of Harkin’s Iowa offices. Harkin became so angry that he personally called then-president Marc Maurer to complain.
Then we dare not omit Mike’s efforts to guarantee the right of blind people to carry guns and to receive permits. Mike’s activities on this issue brought worldwide attention to the issue and to the Federation.
Finally, what a way to end a Federation presidency: Mike bought seriously into the Federation’s effort to establish seventy-five new chapters this year in recognition of our seventy-five years as a movement. His last official act, before giving up his office, was to finalize the establishment of a new chapter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Mike, thank you for your many years of service to the blind of Iowa and America. We know you’ll continue to be around and involved to the extent which your health permits. In the meantime, thank you, God bless you, and be well! And to our new NFBI president, Donna Prime, welcome, and the best of luck to you, too. You have large shoes to fill, and, like those before you, we are confident you will.

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