DATE: Monday, April 28, 1997                TAG: 9704260070
SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   95 lines

SINGING, SINGING CHOIR SOARS WITH SOUND STUDENTS FROM CORPORATE LANDING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PERFORM FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED

The sign for success in American Sign Language is a gracious gesture of fingertips pointing toward the sky with the hands swirling upward, higher and higher.

And the sign for love is crossed hands over the heart.

There are signs of success and love all around the kids who sign and sing for Hands In Motion.

If you've ever wondered whether there are angels among us, doubt no more. I found them last week. They are the 110 pupils, all from Corporate Landing Elementary School in Virginia Beach, who - with their moving hands - are communicating a message of hope to all of us. Especially those who hear poorly or not at all.

It was mid-morning last Wednesday. Hands In Motion gave a performance for kids with handicaps in the gym at the Great Neck Recreation Center in Virginia Beach.

You could see joy in the faces of the kids wearing the Hands In Motion T-shirts as they signed and swayed to the music they sang so earnestly and well.

Outside, rain spat against the windows. One of the songs they sang on that gloomy morning was from the movie ``Space Jams.'' It was called ``I Believe I Can Fly.''

As the kids sang that, arms spread like wings, the gym seemed - for a few moments - to have been been flooded with sunshine:

I believe I can fly

I believe I can touch the sky.

I think about it every night and day

Spread my wings and fly away

I believe I can soar

I see me running through that open door

I believe I can fly. . .

In the bleachers, the handicapped children wore soft smiles, several signing along with the singers. Nice.

And when it was over the kids from Hands In Motion crowded around director Bobbie Bullock-Smith exchanging hugs.

And some, like Hands In Motion member Nathan Slater, 12, talked with her a mile a minute, his hands blurring through the air in excitement. Nathan is hearing-impaired.

The message Hands In Motion carried to the audience last week as part of a ``Very Special Arts'' celebration by Virginia Beach schools and the city for disabled and non-disabled people was that any obstacle can be overcome with faith and love.

Bobbie, the director, is a stunning example of both. A victim of cancer, she is an inspiration not only to her remarkable choir but to all who know her. A petite and attractive woman, she is a person of extraordinary energy. She teaches deaf children in the fourth and fifth grades at Corporate Landing Elementary.

Bobbie has normal hearing, but her parents were both deaf.

After college - she received her master's degree at Old Dominion University - she set out to make life better for the hearing-impaired.

Hands In Motion is one of the ways. About 10 years ago she inherited a signing choir begun by Jan Scott, a speech therapist who has since moved to Georgia.

She and co-director Janice Taylor have given the choir its name and style.

Choir members meet once a week for hourlong practices during the school year. A child has to keep at least a ``C'' average to participate. Most of the choir members have normal hearing.

The signing part of the concerts gives them expressiveness and grace rarely seen in choirs of any kind. There's more energy.

One of the benefits of the choir is not immediately obvious. It is creating a pool of young people in Virginia Beach who, in time, will be able to communicate well with the deaf.

``They learn in little bits,'' she said. ``The gestures for one, two, then many songs. In time they get a working vocabulary and can carry on conversations with the deaf.

``The kids love the choir. And we love them.''

That love, and the support she has received from her husband Bobby has helped her make it through what might have been the darkest period of her life. She was diagnosed with cancer on her birthday last year.

Since then, she has prayed more and worked harder. She says the disease has not progressed.

The choir couldn't make it without the adult volunteers who help, she said. And the stipend the choir gets from the Corporate Landing Elementary PTA. But there's rarely enough money for all they want to do. She and the volunteers pay out of their own pockets for T-shirts and other supplies.

Don't miss Bobbie's choir if you get the chance. This is a group that is really good. One that can go places far beyond local PTAs. All they need is a little encouragement.

Trust me, Hands In Motion can fly. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

BILL TIERNAN

The Virginian-Pilot

Members of Hands in Motion perform at Great neck recreation Center

last week.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu