The Eastern North Carolina School for the Deaf will celebrate its 60th anniversary with a full day of events Saturday.

Cheryl Iannucci, director of the state residential school for the deaf and hard of hearing, said the event is “a day of showing everybody what ENCSD has to offer to the community and rebuilding relationships.”

“The 60th anniversary is all about building community for the ENCSD community and larger community in Wilson and surrounding counties, just bringing everybody back to campus and sharing with them what we have here for our students and welcoming for community to participate,” Iannucci said.

The event will be Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“We have a lot of booths for people to go in and see, items that they are selling, tours, vendors. We have our historical museum open and our athletic hall of fame open,” Iannucci said. “We will be having a Globetrotter (Jolly Manning) that is going to be here performing. We also have fire trucks coming, a K-9 demonstration and then food trucks will be here as well.”

The day will close out with a color run/walk where former students and teachers from the six decades will hold signs noting when they were at the school.

“You can purchase T-shirts and then have the paint thrown at you while you are running, so it is an exciting event that people can come and participate in,” Iannucci said.

Sign language interpreter Lane Oliver said organizing the event has been a campus-wide effort.

“Everybody really just wants to highlight the rich history of ENCSD,” Oliver said. “Our maintenance staff has been working really hard to get our campus in great shape for everybody to come. We have been doing a lot of landscaping making sure that the grass and the grounds look really beautiful. Classrooms have been painted. Doors have been painted.”

Oliver said the staff is trying to let people know about the school.
“We are all about our students and providing the best education we can to provide opportunities for their future,” Oliver said. “So that is the main focus, really preparing them for the future in an environment where they can learn ASL skills and also skills to brighten their futures for success.”

An extra celebration and field day was held for students on Tuesday, and graduation for this year’s seniors was Wednesday.

“Right now we have 37 students, and we are accepting applications for new enrollments,” Iannucci said. “We also have an application week in the beginning of June, and that is advertised on our website for people to come and apply to the school and to give us all of the documents that they need to register. We used to be a lot larger than we are now and our goal would be to increase our enrollment and bring the students.”

SIX DECADES OF HISTORY
Authorization for the ENCSD came in the 1961 General Assembly, and on Jan. 19, 1962, N.C. Gov. Terry Sanford announced that he had approved a 33.46 acre site for the school near the Eastern North Carolina Tuberculosis Sanatorium, which is now Longleaf Neuro-Medical Treatment Center.

Dr. E.T. Beddingfield, chairman of the executive committee for the ENCSD, called the approval of the Wilson site “good news no only to the people of this community in the sense that we are acquiring a potentially sizable facility that will contribute toward economic growth of the area, but it is also good news for the state as a whole and in particular for the deaf children and their parents whose homes are in the eastern part of the state,” according to a Times article at the time.

N.C. Sen. Joe Eagles of Wilson was credited with conceiving the idea for the school to be located in Wilson.

The school was intended to take care of increased enrollment in the State School for the Deaf at Morganton, which has exceeded its capacity.

The school opened on Aug. 24, 1964, with an enrollment of 64 students, but since the Wilson facility was not completed, the students had to attend North Carolina School for the Deaf in Morganton. ENCSD opened in Wilson on April 25, 1965, with 90 students, including 72 students who had transferred from Morganton and 18 new students.

R.M. McAdams was the superintendent of the new school.

ATTEMPTS TO CLOSE
Over the years, there were various efforts to close the school, which serves children from 52 eastern North Carolina counties.

In 2011 and 2012, Wilson residents and others rallied to save the school from closure.
“I remember one instance where we went to a town hall. I think it was at Barton College,” said Briana Brandon, a sign language interpreter coordinator at the school.

“I had only been here for about two years, and it was heartwarming to see all of the support. We had teachers there. Students came to the town hall and it was just really great to see community members, teachers, students stand up and explain not just why ENCSD is important not only to us, but the community.

“Only being here for two years, it really solidified my decision that this is where I am supposed to be,” Brandon said. “It was really great to see all of that support. Some of the people who were there fighting for the school are now on our board of trustees, so it is really great to see that connection that I have seen for 16 years still going strong today.

‘LIGHT BULBS COME ON’
Teachers said the ENCSD is an environment where deaf students can excel.
“It’s always great to see a student who comes in who doesn’t have an established language yet or who is kind of struggling in public schools with getting that language,”

Brandon said. “Just being here for a few weeks or months and seeing that light bulb come on, and they have that ‘aha’ moment. This is their language and this is their culture. To see them excel here is really great to see.”

Brandon said that some kids, many with cochlear implants or hearing aids, are struggling with their identity when they arrive at the school.

“Once they get here they see that there are peers here and having hearing loss doesn’t matter,” Brandon said. “You start to see the cochlears come off. You see the hearing aids come off, and they really identify themselves and find their true identity while they are here and that’s just so great to see.”

Mandy Armstrong, data manager and assistant to the principal, said the ENCSD “is filled with an amazing group of people.”

“These are very dedicated staff members who are just truly in love with this school,” Armstrong said. “This is an environment that I have never been in before. There is a true love for teaching. There is a true love for these kids and these kids thrive here, especially when you see them come from public school and they are shy and they don’t really know and when they get here and they start to open up and you see this whole other side of them, it is really amazing to watch.”

https://restorationnewsmedia.com/articles/wilsontimes/encsd-celebrates-60-years-of-teaching-the-deaf/