FAYETTEVILLE — Fifty years ago Elizabeth Richardson took up a torch for area school children who had disabilities beyond what public schools could accommodate.
In the 1960s, it was socially acceptable to use the word “retarded” when describing children with various developmental disabilities and delays. Those who could go to public school were designated “educable” and those who needed more help were designated “trainable.”
“These trainable children, there was no place for them and they were pretty much kept at home. They were invisible,” said Dr. Wade Burnside, who came to Fayetteville as the community’s first pediatrician in 1959.
Richardson - described by Burnside as a patient, warm and kind woman- had been a teacher before marrying Dr. Fount Richardson, a family practice doctor. He died in 1963, and soon after, Elizabeth was asked to start the Washington County School for Retarded Children with four students in a classroom in the basement of Fayetteville’s First Presbyterian Church.
“I don’t remember what we paid Elizabeth, but I know it was a pittance. We didn’t have much money, and money was not an issue for her,”Burnside said. He depicted Richardson as “the quintessential Southern lady.” She ran the school or was otherwise associated with it for the rest of her life.
In 2012, the center served more than 650 children and adults in 10 locations in Benton, Washington and Madison counties. Clients’ ages range from 6 months to the mid-60s.
Among them is Heather Armstrong, 43, whose loving family watched her mature and grow as she moved through the Richardson Center’s upper grades and work program.
Joan and the late Bruce Armstrong moved their family of six to Fayetteville from Janesville, Wis., in 1973, when Heather was 4. Older sons Bruce, Rob and Spencer went to public school, and Heather attended special-education classes until junior high.
“She had too much trouble figuring out the bus ... and the locker,” the mom said. It was a turning point for her redheaded girl.
Heather lived in one of the center’s group homes from age 18 to 21, but now lives in the family home with Joan, where Heather can take care of Rosie, her gray-bearded Labrador mix and a fish named Clark. The Elizabeth Richardson Center bus takes her to and from Richardson Industries, where 60-70 adult clients do light assembly work, such as assembling the changeable numbered price signs for Wal-Mart’s store displays. Center workers assemble between 9 million and 10 million pieces for the retailer annually and have put together as many as 16 million pieces in a year.
Heather’s paycheck isn’t much, but it means a lot to her, her mother said. Heather gives some to charities, such as St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and the Fayetteville Animal Shelter.
“The daily routine’s very important to Heather,” said brother Rob. “[Clients] have the opportunity to go to a place and feel the benefits of contributing to something.
“She doesn’t like it when they run out of work,” he said.
When their father died, memorials were made to the center. That money and matching contributions from the Armstrong family were enough to donate a new shrink-wrap machine to wrap pallets of goods at Richardson Industries. Before that, loaded pallets were wrapped by hand.
CHANGING TIMES
Said John Buck, the Richardson Center’s executive director: “Things have changed a little since those days in the basement of the Presbyterian church.”
A decade in, the school outgrew its space at the church and began to focus on a new building on Woodland Avenue, next to one of Fayetteville’s two junior high schools.
Recalled Burnside: “When we were raising money to build that school, someone in Springdale who was on our board said, ‘I’ll talk to [trucking pioneer] Harvey Jones.’ Harvey said he would give $50,000 toward the school if we would move it to Springdale and name it for his wife.
“Bernice, his wife, said at one point, ‘That’s a good cause. You just give them the money,’” Burnside said, his voice breaking.
Feeling the name was no longer politically correct - and the arrival of another “Richardson Center” in the city - officials changed the name of the preschool to The Richardson Center Inc. in 1999.
The secretary of state’s office made it official in 2004. The Richardson Center wanted to avoid confusion between its name and the Yvonne Richardson Community Center in south Fayetteville, named for the late daughter of the former Razorbacks basketball coach Nolan Richardson.
“We’d get calls for them, and they’d get calls for us,” remembered Buck.
When he came on board in 1999, The Richardson Center had not made much progress in terms of finding new revenue sources and enlisting more clients.
“We wanted to expand, to reach out to kids in these three counties,” Buck said.
The center opened a Springdale preschool in 2006, a Siloam Springs preschool in2008, a Farmington preschool in 2010 and a Huntsville preschool last year. The Farmington and Huntsville facilities provide services in otherwise underserved areas.
The Siloam Spring school aids disabled children in the western part of the county and the Benton County Sunshine School - “a collaborator and cooperator,” said Buck - serves the eastern part of the county.
Families provide transportation for clients to their assigned Richardson Center facilities, or a van from the center picks them up and takes them home. Before the opening of the Siloam Springs building, children had to make a one to 1 1/2-hour roundtrip commute to the center’s closest facility in Fayetteville or Springdale.
A JOB WELL DONE
The center’s administrative offices are housed in a large metal building on Old Missouri Road along with Richardson Industries. The work “keeps everybody busy,” Buck said.
Some mornings, as many as 30 to 40 students from Springdale’s high schools work alongside clients while supervised by students and the center’s staff. The clients usually work 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
“The shorter day meets their level of endurance,” Buck said. “It’s an opportunity for them to learn new skills and develop a routine. The largest volume of work comes from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., baby-wipe maker Rockline Industries and electronics firms, requiring fine motor coordination. Some clients even solder pieces under skilled supervision from staff.
“It’s a real workplace,” Buck added. The clients take it seriously, as they should, he said. “We have to do good work at a competitive price.” It’s up to the center to go out and find the appropriate jobs. Richardson Industries is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities International, an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services.
During slow times, staff members help clients with their social and interview skills so they can go out and find work in the community.
To learn non work-related skills, about 50 clients a day attend the center’s Life Skills program at the Ford Avenue location in Springdale. This facility serves more severely disabled clients on tasks such as hygiene, meal preparation and money management - activities needed to live independent of others.
For those with lesser abilities, the center operates three 10-bed homes - the Jones Home, the Richardson Home and the Norman Home - allin the vicinity of Kim Avenue in Springdale.
Those residential facilities house residents 18 and older and are staffed with nurses around-the-clock. The latter is named for John O. and Irene Norman, who had a family member that was served by the center.
“He was someone that Mrs. Richardson could count on when times were tough financially,” Buck said.
The center’s recently released annual report shows it received and spent about $8.2 million in 2012, though it spent about $60,000 more than it took in. It’s only the second time in Buck’s 13-yearcareer that the center operated at a deficit. Money from reserves covered the shortfall.
The annual report also offers parents, donors and others a quarter-by-quarter look at success rates for both the adult and children’s programs. Buck said every client who enters the Richardson Center receives an individualized plan for meeting goals and objectives, even if the goal is learning to brush their teeth every day. The adult success rates were all in the mid-to-upper 80 percent range, and children’s success rates were in the upper 80 to low 90 percentages.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 02/10/2013