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EC students celebrate holidays at South Iredell High School event

Statesville Record & Landmark - 12/16/2017

A group of exceptional students filled the library at South Iredell High School with holiday spirit Friday morning ? joyfully reminding the audience about the nuanced perspective of people with disabilities.

Students in the Exceptional Children program at South Iredell, decked out in various ensembles of red and green, filed into two rows of chairs. Low chatter filled the school's library as EC teacher Sharon Turner greeted a woman sitting in a wheelchair with a big hug.

"How are you, darling?" Turner asked. "You never forgot us, did you baby?"

The woman is a former student in South Iredell's EC program.

"This is really where I belong because these students need me," Turner said. "She's been gone three years, but she's still attached. We still have a bond. That just speaks to my heart."

To begin the program, Turner introduced about a dozen of her students.

"When it comes to my students, they are more than the world perceives them to be," she said.

The program was filled with Christmas carols including "Feliz Navidad," "Silent Night" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." It also showcased the skills the students had worked on over the past semester like basic Spanish, counting to 50 and matching pictures of objects with corresponding numbers.

Two students in the program, Austin Crone and Noah Wynne, were lead characters in a Christmas-themed skit.

Crone's favorite part of the program was "mostly playing guitar to 'Feliz Navidad' with my friends and making sure they had a nice Christmas," he said.

A group of South Iredell football players came to the program to cheer on teammate Wynne, which he thought was "pretty fun."

Miss Statesville, Alyssa Johnson, made a guest appearance at the end of the program. The junior at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro has made advocating for children with disabilities her community-service platform.

Johnson, back home while on winter break, said she's visited local EC programs and is working on a video to inform the general public about people with disabilities and the programs that support them.

"I don't think people are educated enough, and because they are not educated they're scared and they don't understand," Johnson said. "People with disabilities deserve a lot of love and attention that they don't get every day."

Turner said organizing this year's Christmas program was an honor.

"It doesn't come without a challenge, it doesn't come sometimes without tears, but at the end of the day, it's so rewarding," she said. "It is all worth it just to see them grow."

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