Our Stars – Karren Innis, A Person of Quiet Courage

By Joyce A. Rogers
January 6, 2012

Karren lived with her parents and younger brother in California, Nevada, and Oklahoma for the first ten years of her life. She then moved to Hurst, Texas, and finally settled in Cincinnati soon after finishing college at Mary Manse College in Toledo, a college run by Ursuline nuns that closed in the 1970s. Karren majored in music, but turned to proof-reading at her career of choice. She has worked for the last thirty-five years at Clovernook Center in the Braille transcription department. Karren says that she has recently been proof-reading magazines such as The New York Times Book Review and Harper’s Magazine. Karren loves her work, and, surprisingly or not, she spends some of her free time reading books and periodicals including mysteries by Mary Higgins Clark and the Guidepost magazine.

Karren and her husband, Bill, also enjoy attending plays at the Covedale Theater at 4990 Glenway. They both greatly appreciate that the Covedale offers audio described plays such as White Christmas, attended by them on Dec. 3. In addition, Karren and Bill spend a lot of their free time as active members in two leading organizations that work hard to improve the quality of life for people who are blind or visually impaired. Karren’s greatest joys in life are her fourteen year marriage to her husband, Bill, her career as a proof-reader, and her volunteer work with the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB). NFB and ACB both are organizations “OF” people who are blind or visually impaired who, with their sighted friends and colleagues, give unstintingly of their competence, ability, and skill to let the world at large know that they are an important part of this old world. They are the ordinary people of quiet courage performing their jobs, making their marriages work, and taking care of their families just as others do.

Karren, aged 66, and Bill, aged 74, are beginning to think about retirement. Whether they decide to move to Texas and become caretakers for Karren’s elderly father with health problems, or they stay in Cincinnati and increase their volunteer work; they will add to the pool of goodness in our world.

For all of you readers out there, it is never too late to find new ways of helping others, and it is never too late to improve your own quality of life by taking on new challenges. We ordinary people of quiet courage welcome you. It is a new year, and it is time we see new faces working with us. Won’t you join us to make a difference?