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Our Featured Kid is...

Bonnie Reinhardt, of Ponte Vedra, Florida.

As a teenager, Bonnie (who is nineteen) still qualifies for our Featured Kid Award and certainly her recent accomplishment justifies her selection.

Bonny Reinhardt of Ponte Vedra had made plans to enter the University of North Florida this fall for her sophomore year having completed a year at Florida State last June. But this past summer, something came up that forced her to put those plans on hold for a while...she was selected to the United States Paralympic Goalball Team. Instead of going off to UNF in the fall, Bonny learned that she would be going to Sidney Australia to compete in the 2000 Paralympic Games in October. The Paralympic Games start a week after the 2000 Olympic Games end.

Born with albinism, the nineteen year-old Reinhardt is legally blind. "I see well enough to get around without a cane but the bright sunlight is a problem for me" and adds that her vision is about 20/200.

During the summer between her sophomore and junior year at Nease High School in Ponte Vedra, Bonny attended a summer camp sponsored by the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind where she was introduced to a game called goalball. Goalball was developed in Austria and Germany in the late 1940's to provide recreational activity for blinded veterans of World War II.

Goalball is a floor game, a little like soccer, played on a court about the size of a volley ball court with a basketball like ball (unpressurized) with holes and bells inside. Three players, a center and two wings, try to roll the ball over a goal line while three defenders attempt to block the ball  from crossing the goal line. Ironically all six players on the court are blindfolded and players follow the movement of the ball by the sound of the bells.

The game instantly fascinated the visually impaired Reinhardt and by the time camp was over, she had developed into a skilled player; so much so that the Florida School coach convinced Reinhardt to transfer to the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind. She did and completed her junior and senior year there, graduating as salutatorian of her class. She was also the starting center on the goalball team for two years. In 1998-99 Bonny lead her team to the United States Association of Blind Athletes National High School Championship and she was named USABA All-American for that year.

After graduation, Bonny enrolled at FSU with thoughts of becoming an electrical engineer. She continued to train and play with the Florida Association of Blind Athletes women's team and in April she tried out for the Paralympic team.

"Everything happened so fast, I had no idea there was a chance I could make the team until last April" she said. "But when the list came out, my name was on it. This is probably the most exciting thing that has happened to me in my entire life."