Dean Reeves wears the
bright orange garment of “the Cardboard King,” the loving
nickname bestowed on him by his fellow employees at Providence
Hood River Memorial Hospital.
Reeves, 29, thrives on
paperwork: cardboard, mixed paper, and medical confidential —
and cardboard.
“He was born right here
in this hospital,” said Ethel Reeves, his mother and co-worker.
“He is a success story
for our community,” Ethel said. “Now he has a productive job. He
lives on his own with the help of a part time caregiver.”
“I love my job. It’s
fun. People are very friendly,” Dean said. “I like going to all
the departments. It’s a good place to work.”
When Dean was 14 months
old, doctors suggested a very different fate for him than a
responsible job and an apartment of his own. Because he was
diagnosed with severe mental retardation (“I’m his mother, and
that is what it’s called,” said Ethel), Ethel and her husband,
Robert, were faced with a choice.
“They suggested we put
him in an institution, start a new family and just walk away.
But we couldn’t do that. But that’s what they did 28 years ago.”
These days Dean thrives
on his job as recycling specialist, and on his family and music
and movies.
He is where he is today
“by the grace of God and the local education system,” said
Ethel, who is employee health nurse and safety officer at PHRMH.
“It was persistence. We wanted to get him the best education we
could.”
Dean graduated from
HRVHS in 1998. He was “one of the first real SPED students” in
the Hood River County School District. When he was a student at
Mid Valley Elementary the district hired a fully qualified
teacher, Rosie Dorzab, to meet his needs. The schools nurtured
him through grade school and middle school and into high school.
Ethel points to teachers Pat Fisher of Wy’east and HRVHS’ Brent
Emmons, who taught Special Ed and science, as ones who
challenged Dean as well as encouraged fellow students to work
with him, and Don Hendrickson and Pete Buttaccio of HRVHS.
Ethel said his teachers
in science and history energized Dean.
“He asked one night,
‘What is Vietnam?’ That’s a thought-provoking question for a
mentally handicapped child. It told us he was growing and
thinking.”
One night Dean told his
Dad he needed worms for science class the next day. They went
out and bought three dozen.
“It turned out Dean was
the only student who brought earth worms, all the other kids
forgot them,” Ethel said. His teacher treated him to Gummi worms
as a reward and Dean enjoyed the recognition as well as the
experiments themselves.
Said Ethel, “Those
teachers challenged his fellow students to come up with lesson
plans for Dean, and dedicated themselves to that. He had a lot
of respect and admiration from his fellow students. I still see
that evident today. They see him around town and come up and
greet him.”
Emmons, who is now vice
principal at HRVHS, remembers Dean well.
“Dean had a natural
inquisitiveness that was contagious not only to his fellow
students but also his teachers, who would feed off that desire
to learn,” he said. “He had a true sense of wonder.”
Ethel also credited Bev
Cedarstam, then his Special Ed teacher’s assistant, and Dr. Mike
Pendleton, his Special Olympics coach in swimming, for which
Dean won many medals.
Dean previously worked
at Columbia Gorge Center, a sheltered employment and job
training agency based in Pine Grove, and volunteered for a year
at the hospital. After showing he was a hard worker who could
learn, he was given his 20-hour weekly position.
That was five years ago.
Now he is a regular part of the pulse of hospital life; among
his rounds is lunch in the cafeteria each day.
But Dean is not all
work. He loves to go fishing with his parents, and Thursday
night is movie night, every week. He loves music, especially
when he is either playing the bongo drums or dancing to it.
At the annual Mt. Hood Kiwanis Camp, “he
dances until they make him get off the stage.” At the hospital
Christmas party there was general reluctance to start dancing,
but not Dean. Ethel said, “He was the first one out there. He
danced and danced, He has music in his feet.”
