An Emporia youngster will be in Los Angeles next month as a finalist in the Braille Challenge.
Charlie Wilks, who will be 12 on June 6, will compete against 11 other youngsters in his category. A total of 60 children qualified among the 400-plus students who entered the contest.
“I’m the only one from Kansas,” said Charlie. “I was surprised and happy. I always tell myself I’m not that good until they tell me I am.”
There is little doubt that Charlie is, at a minimum, “good.”
Charlie has been blind since the age of 5, when juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma — a brain tumor — went undiagnosed for several months until he was referred to Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. After doctors removed 90 percent of the baseball-sized tumor, he was left permanently blind.
The experience didn’t put a damper on Charlie’s ebullient personality. He laughed often and teased his teacher, Linda Baumann, and paraprofessional, Eve Ott, unendingly as they gathered to talk about the upcoming Challenge.
First prize in the Challenge is a $5,000 savings bond, second prize is a $2,500 bond, and third is a $500 bond, he said.
“I’m going to win first, and I’m going to win $5,000,” Charlie said.
“How about a loan?” Ott asked.
“How about ‘no’?” he shot back, shaking his head and grinning.
Charlie will compete in four categories: speedreading and comprehension, speed and accuracy, spelling and proofreading.
Charlie is approaching the competition with a talent that’s been building since he returned to Walnut School for first grade and began studying Braille.
“He sailed through Braille,” said Linda Baumann, who has taught Charlie throughout all of his schooling. “I’d say by December he was fully integrated into first-grade class.”
Learning to use Braille was simple, Charlie said; preparing to “read” with his fingers was not. Baumann assigned Charlie an assortment of exercises to prepare his fingers for reading.
“I had to push pins into a cardboard box and I thought Mrs. Baumann was mean. Yeah, I still do,” he added, laughing again.
The trio’s combined diligence in training has paid off. Charlie reads quickly and types out words on a Braille typewriter with surprising speed. He’s memorized about 230 “contracted” characters that merge individual letters into one character.
The youngster has written several fantasy books brightened with sparks from his sense of humor, and he’s able to hook up his Braille typewriter into both a Braille printer and an ink printer so others can read what his imagination created.
Charlie also excels at mathematics, with the latest test score placing the sixth-grader at a 10th-grade level. He also is able to use “nemeth code” characters for more advanced math problems.
“He’s very computer literate so he can use it on his own,” Baumann said.
Baumann said that he also is learning the standard keyboard in computer class, and has a burning interest in another keyboard as well.
“I can play the piano like crazy,” Charlie said. “And saxophone and guitar and drums and harmonica.”
Charlie and his mother, Jennifer Cunningham, will have food and lodging expenses paid for two days; however, they will need to pay for plane tickets and any other expenses beyond the two days.
“And I get to go to Universal Studios, and I get to ride a roller coaster that drops 85 feet,” Charlie said.
To be able to do that, Charlie is planning some fundraisers to earn money for the pair’s plane tickets to Los Angeles, souvenirs, car rental, extra meals and other expenses that will not be covered. He’s considering a lemonade stand, a bake sale, selling bottled water and a car wash.
He’s eager to be on his way to Los Angeles, even though there’s one aspect of the studio tour he’s definitely not looking forward to.
“My mom’s going to make me get my picture taken with Shrek,” he said. “And Donkey.”