Bentley Cindy - Cindy Bentley: spirit of a champion

Cindy Bentley

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Cindy Bentley

Spirit of a Champion

Bob Kann and Caroline Hoffman

Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Publishers since 1855

2010 by State Historical Society of Wisconsin
E-book edition 2013

For permission to reuse material from Cindy Bentley: Spirit of a Champion (ISBN 978-0-87020-456-2; e-book ISBN 978-0-87020-666-5), please access www.copyright.com or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that provides licenses and registration for a variety of users.

wisconsinhistory.org

Photographs identified with WHi or WHS are from the Societys collections; address requests to reproduce these photos to the Visual Materials Archivist at the Wisconsin Historical Society, 816 State Street, Madison, WI 53706.

This publication was funded, in part, by the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities. Federal funds were provided under PL 106-402 through a grant authorized by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Board grantees are encouraged to freely express their findings and conclusions. These points of view do not necessarily represent the official position of the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities.

Front cover image courtesy of Special Olympics Wisconsin

14 13 12 11 10 1 2 3 4 5

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Kann, Bob.

Cindy Bentley : spirit of a champion / Bob Kann and Caroline Hoffman.

p. cm.(Badger biographies)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-87020-456-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Bentley, Cindy. 2. AthletesWisconsinBiography. 3. Special OlympicsBiography. 4. Developmentally disabled childrenWisconsinBiography. 5. Developmental disabilitiesBiography. I. Hoffman, Caroline. II. Title.

GV697.B44K36 2010

796.092dc22

[B]

2010001910

This book is dedicated to Cindy Bentley. Your great spirit is an inspiration to us all.

Publication of this book was made possible, in part, by a gift from the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities.

Contents

Meet Cindy Bentley

Cindy Bentley did not grow up living in a home with her parents. Instead, she spent most of her childhood in an . There, she and other children with disabilities were cared for by grown-ups who worked for the State of Wisconsin. At the institution, Cindy had few opportunities to meet new people, go to new places, and try new things. This made Cindy feel as though she lived in a small fishbowl.

As an adult, Cindy loves to tell this story by her friend Mary Clare Carlson about goldfish and fishbowls:

The size of a goldfish depends on the size of the place where it lives. If you keep a goldfish in a small fishbowl, it stays small: only 2 inches long. But if you place the goldfish in a large pond, it grows much larger, up to 13 inches long.

People are a lot like goldfish. If we live and work in a small and limited area, our lives stay small, and we do not mature and grow as adults. If we live and work in many different and challenging places in the community, spending time with many different people, our lives grow large, and we mature as adults. We can do more than anyone ever dreamed we could do.

Choose the pond, not the fishbowl!

When Cindy was 26 years old, she finally moved into a house with other people in a neighborhood. For the first time in her life, she began to feel that the fishbowl was getting larger. When she moved into her own apartment 3 years later, she was out of the fishbowl at last.

A recent picture of Cindy

No one ever imagined that once Cindy was on her own, she would have dinner at the White House twice with 2 different American presidents, travel around the world, and give a speech in front of 15,000 people. But she did!

This is Cindys storyand how she chose the pond instead of the fishbowl.

Nobody Loved Her

Cindy Bentleys first day of life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 18, 1957, was almost her last. Her doctors thought she might not live more than 24 hours. Why? While Cindys mother was pregnant, she used illegal drugs and drank a lot of alcohol. Cindy didnt die, but her mothers drug and alcohol use did leave Cindy with an .

Having a disability means that someone cant do something or has difficulty doing something that a person without a disability can do. If the disability is permanent, it will last a persons whole life. Cindy has a permanent intellectual disability.

What Are Disabilities?

There are many kinds of disabilities. People with physical disabilities have trouble using part of their body. They may not be able to walk or use their arms. People with . Some can be helped with medications and others with special equipment such as a wheelchair.

Some people find learning easier than other people do. People with intellectual disabilities are slower to learn and may have more difficulty understanding new ideas or information than people without intellectual disabilities. They may have trouble learning to talk, to read, or to do other things that their friends can easily do. In the United States, as many as 3 million people have an intellectual disability.