Roland "Commander" Sykes
June 1st, 1953 - March 10th, 2008
Wizard, Bit Twiddler, Philosopher, Teacher, and most fun of
all...
The Bus Driver for ADAPT
From: Lou Diehl
I began to work for Kathleen Kleinmann at TRIPIL in 1989. We had just moved into our new office at 120 East Hallam Ave. It was in this office that I met Roland Sykes for the first time. As was his way, and as we all know, if you asked for Roland's opinion on something, you usually got it in lecture style instruction and it lasted a minimum of 1 or 2 hours.
The words he spoke of on this particular day were terms such as; information & referral, data sharing, empowering folks with disabilities in some of the most rural areas of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across this country of ours. He ended his dissertation with something called the World Wide Web or as the www. Or the web.
I returned to my office with eyes a glaze, which is difficult to tell since I am blind in one eye and couldn't hardly see anything out of the other eye. I spoke to my co-worker John about Roland's words and apparently John had received the same impassioned lecture from Roland that I did just hours before and John, who was sort of a"techey" kind of man appeared to be just as excited about this thing called the www. I then walked to my desk mumbling to myself about how a person with my disability could possibly benefit from this thing called the www.
More to come later.
Lou Diehl
Freedom Fighter
