62 Years in a Wheelchair Just Part of Judy’s Life

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Excerpt from Northwest Disability Connections: (click for entire article)

In March of 1978, life kind of overwhelmed Judy Hoit.

She had two young boys, 10 and 12, who required a lot of her time.

Her rocky marriage would soon end in divorce after her husband quit school in Des Moines.

She lost her job because she no longer had a ride to work.

Then a caller had the nerve to ask if she’d be interested in working at the University of Iowa.

“Someone in Iowa City,” Judy recalls, “wanted a secretary with a visible disability.”

Judy was 32. She lived in Guthrie Center. She had been in a wheelchair since polio struck at age 4.

“I didn’t want a job just because somebody was interested in somebody with a disability,” she says.

But Bill Shanhouse, the vice president of administrative services, didn’t give up. He was in charge of handicapped services at the university. He wanted Judy because he knew she could handle being in the front lines. She’d done well for three years at Easter Seals.