Bryn Laster, a senior at Whiteland Community High School, poses with one of her pieces of art in her art classroom at the high school. Laster is legally blind, but she has not let that stop her from achieving her goals in school and life.
Emily Ketterer | Daily Journal
Just because she can’t see the stars doesn’t mean she can’t reach for them.
Bryn Laster has told herself this phrase for years, and chose it as her senior yearbook quote because it rings true in her journey.
Laster, who is a senior at Whiteland Community High School, is legally blind, and has been her entire life. But that has not stopped her at all from achieving her goals and dreams.
Throughout her four years in high school, she’s completed over 18 credit hours of college courses through dual credit and online classes, and she is ranked 16th in her class out of over 460 students.
“That’s very, that’s very high, and I’ll take that, especially for someone who does struggle with physical disability,” Laster said. “And, you know, it stands a point like, I’m not letting anything hold me back.”
She is a self-described “overachiever,” and she pushes herself to be the best she can be, despite her physical disability. Laster, at first, did not go into high school have the intention of racking up college credits and taking high-level classes, and she just started taking classes she thought were interesting.
Laster has taken a number of classes both in-person at school, and online college courses through Ivy Tech and Indiana University, she said.
Through all these classes, she found a passion for agriculture and animal science.
The first dual credit class she took her sophomore year was an agriculture animal science class, and she immediately grew to love agriculture. That then led her to join FFA at the high school.
“FFA gave me a whole new perspective on life around the things around me. I learned things I didn’t know before,” Laster said.
She plans to now pursue a career in agriculture education, and hopes to teach other young people, like her, the world of agriculture. She’s attending Huntington University in the fall to major in agriculture education and animal science.
“I just wanted to get back to a world that gives me so much it gives me a new purpose,” Laster said.
Like many students in FFA, or in 4-H programs, who have grown up in farming or have a family business in agriculture, Laster does not have those direct connections. That makes her experience unique, she said. And that’s why she wants to share it by teaching others in the future.
Hannah Goeb, an agriculture teacher at WCHS, first met Laster when she started taking agriculture classes and joined FFA her sophomore year. Goeb said she watched Laster grow and come out of her shell more through the FFA and agriculture programs at school.
She is excited to see Laster pursue a career in agriculture education.
“She’s going to really be a good agriculture teacher someday, if that’s what she continues to choose to do, because she’s got kind of a different experience than some of those kids that grew up in like a farming background,” Goeb said. “She can kind of take that side of it and share that and maybe bring some new people in.”
Many of Laster’s dual credit classes were in the agriculture department at WCHS, and she even earned an industry certification in Animal Agribusiness. Because she took so many college-level classes in high school, she will graduate with the equivalent of an associate’s degree.
She still plans to attend school for four years, though. With the extra credits, she won’t have as big of class loads and she can get right into classes geared to her major.
“I’m just going to be flowing along a bit easier. I’ll still be stressed because things take longer for me, for example, when a friend can read a passage in 10 minutes, it will take me probably about 15 to 20 at least,” Laster said.
Laster’s family knew she had visual impairment starting when she was around three months old. She cannot see color, and she has no depth perception. She has to hold papers or her phone, for example, very close to her face to see what is on them.
Laster described her vision as “living in old-fashioned television.”
“What’s funny is people are like, ‘That’s sad.’ And I’m just like, ‘well, that’s how I’ve lived,’ and I’ve just embraced it,” Laster said.
Laster began attending the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired when she was 2 years old, and she stayed there through middle school. Knowing she needed more advanced curriculum, her parents started her in public school at Clark-Pleasant in seventh grade.
Her first year in public school wasn’t easy. Laster recalled her second-period class on her first day, where her teacher had color-coded papers they wanted students to look at. Laster could not tell which paper was what color, and it was frustrating and scary for her, she recalled.
Laster pushed herself to do better, and she gradually learned how to advocate for herself and her needs. In advocating for herself, Laster learned to tell her teachers when she needed different accommodations or more time on an assignment.
She started seventh grade behind other students, being at a fourth-grade reading level. By the end of that school year, she was reading above her grade level.
“I definitely had to learn advocacy, but it was a challenge getting there,” Laster said. “Especially in middle school, when I have these teachers who just didn’t know, and was I like, ‘Oh, I don’t really know how to speak up for myself.’”
In eighth grade, Laster started working with Katie Crawford, Clark-Pleasant’s blind and low-vision consultant. Laster, and her mother, Tamara, credit Crawford a lot with Laster’s success in public school.
Crawford gave Laster an extra push to perform to her best abilities, and to advocate for herself in the classroom. Now, Crawford has become a mentor to Laster, and a family friend.
“I’m going to miss her. But I’m so excited,” Crawford said. “That’s, you know, that’s my goal, as a teacher of students with visual impairments, is to see them become independent and go out into the world and, you know, be successful and contribute to society.”
In addition to her interest in agriculture, Laster also has a passion for art. She specializes in mostly ceramics, and also paints and does graphite drawings. She takes advanced art classes in high school, and has thought about taking more art classes in college. Or possible starting a side gig to sell art while she’s in school.
That’s another area where she’s never let her visual impairment get in the way. She has various art pieces on display at the high school, from paintings to sculptures.
Though she never let her physical disability stop her, change may also be coming for Laster soon. She is eligible for a stage three clinical trial that could restore her vision to see colors. The possibility of gaining the ability to see color wasn’t something she thought was possible, she said.
“You know, it’s still iffy because it’s a trial, but it’s exciting,” Laster said.
Laster is excited for her future, and she hopes to be an inspiration to anyone to show they can accomplish to whatever they set out to do, if they work hard enough.
“I don’t want to inspire someone saying I did it, so you can so you can do it. I want to say, if you put if you push you can do it. It’s just matter stepping out your comfort zone,” Laster said.
