Garlich an able advocate for the disabled

Roger Garlich was on his way to Berlin, or so he thought, when he wound up taking a job with the Crippled Children’s Center. That changed his life, and has improved the lives of thousands of people with disabilities since.

Garlich had enrolled in graduate school at Louisiana State University when the Berlin crisis erupted in 1961. As a member of the National Guard, he was assured that he would be called up for active duty in Berlin. So he gave up his place at LSU only to discover that he was not called after all.

Garlich returned to Central Missouri State University but needed a job. In September 1961, Garlich provided the first speech therapy services to students in the Green Ridge and La Monte school districts.

When J.D. Walker became the state’s first director of sheltered workshops in 1965, Garlich was hired to replace him as director of Crippled Children’s Center, a position he has held since. He leads the Center for Human Services, which has an annual budget of $16 million, employs 289 people and serves clients in 28 counties, but mostly in Pettis, Saline, Moniteau and Benton.

The agency’s modest beginnings have become the stuff of folklore. Garlich, 68, keeps the shoe box that was the agency’s bank in the early days in a display case behind his office desk.

Lucille White, the Crippled Children’s Center’s treasurer, kept the financial records in a recipe box at her home, when the annual budget was $47,000.

Garlich recalls going to White’s house and sitting down at her kitchen table as she thumbed through the recipe box.

“Honey, I think donations are going to come in OK, so we can meet the payroll,” he remembers her saying.

But it was not long before federal grants were flowing to the states to provide “free and appropriate education” to children with disabilities.

In 1966, Cooperative Workshops Inc. was founded here and Garlich oversaw the first sheltered workshop in Missouri.

Vocational education “gave freedom for people to go out and get a job.”

In 1986, a “backdoor to the workshop” was established. People with disabilities who worked in the sheltered workshop were encouraged to take jobs in private enterprise.

“Our folks are as good an employee as you’re ever going to find. ... Maybe a little slower ... but the quality is there,” Garlich said.

“My entire career has been dedicated to finding opportunities for people with disabilities to be accepted,’ Garlich said. “People have gained value.”

Jim Renninson can attest to that.

Renninson, 55, who has cerebral palsy, went to school in 1958 at the Crippled Children’s Center through the eighth grade. He attended Smith-Cotton High School as a homebound student because the building was not accessible to people using wheelchairs. He went on to State Fair Community College before earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s in economics, both from the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Renninson now works as an independent contractor as the Center for Human Services’ webmaster.

He lives in a barrier-free apartment, one of several residences developed by the Center for Human Services as it turned its attention in the 1980s to housing for people with disabilities.

“We were able to live and get established on our own and live in a place of our choosing before it became a necessity because of our parents aging,” Renninson said.

Others who need 24-hour staff care live in places such as Tradewinds.

“I can think of several people right now that would be literally in nursing homes if it weren’t for Tradewinds ,” Renninson said. “Of course, it saves the taxpayers a fortune.”

Garlich plans to retire within the next two years to spend time with his family, including four grandchildren in Missouri. He will do some painting — his son is an artist — and writing.

As he looks back on his career, he remembers a cousin who had a disability.

“I always thought that in the way of service work, that would be good work to do,” he said.