(This article first appeared in LNP | LancasterOnline on June 15, 2024.)
When Anthony “Nay” Keller (’25) arrived at his Adams County (Pa.) home … his soon-to-be 3-year-old daughter, Aspen, gazed curiously at her dad’s new ear accessory—and it wasn’t a new set of earrings.
“Your ear, Daddy! It’s green!” she says, waltzing around the kitchen floor.
But little did Aspen know she gave her dad the greatest Father’s Day he could ask for: the sound of her own voice.
And as time went on, Anthony’s hearing only got worse. He had a harder time hearing in crowded, noisy environments and had problems discerning speech. But what upset Anthony the most was not being able to communicate normally with his family—which meant never getting the chance to hear his youngest daughter Aspen’s voice.
“The only time that I could really know Aspen’s ‘voice’ was if she was upset, screaming and crying,” says Anthony. “I would pick her up and hold her on the right side of my head, screaming into the hearing aids. I could tell there was noise going in, but I couldn’t discern anything she said.”
One of Anthony’s LBC professors, Betty Bacon, talked to LNP about working with him in the the Foundations of Ministry course: “He’s such a deep well,” Bacon said. “He is such a deep, caring person with a passion for helping those around him. I realized that I’ve never worked with a deaf student before, so I didn’t even really know what our resources were. I just wanted to make sure that he had every resource available to him.”
Bacon pointed him to Lancaster Bible College’s Ally Accessibility Services, a case-by-case disability resource center that allocates accommodations to students with disabilities. This service is universal across college campuses with compliance to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 1973.
“I like to see our role as a guide, a philosopher and a friend,” Bacon says. ”Just like any good guide, you want to help those on the journey as much as possible.”