STERLING – Dale Levering said his older son Isaac essentially died three times on an ambulance ride from Wichita’s Wesley Medical Center to the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Neb.
 
Each harrowing moment on that day seven years ago, medical personnel revived Isaac, whose fifth-grade school year was cut short by injuries he sustained in a fall from a flatbed truck.
 
Already left in a coma for 40 days from the traumatic brain injury he incurred when his head twice struck the gravel on a country road outside of Sterling after a day of tagging calves, Levering’s condition – and future – were uncertain at best.
 
“With our faith, I don’t question God,” said Dale Levering, pastor of the Abbyville Community Church and a Christian missionary along with his wife, Dina. “My deal is I need to be obedient to God’s will. If this is what happened, I need to live out what I need to do to help our son.”
 
That spirit has permeated the Levering family in the ensuing years and provided a positive influence for Isaac, who despite losing his hearing after the incident and encountering other disabilities, is in line to graduate with a 4.0 grade-point average next month from Sterling Junior/Senior High School.
 
Levering is the CapFed® True Blue® Student of the Week.
 
The 18-year-old Levering, with assistance from school district sign-language interpreters DeeDee Dold and Erin Rogers, has emerged as a top-flight student through a journey of reinvention. Levering spent approximately nine months in hospitals in 2018 following the accident, and his rehabilitation began with re-learning basic motor skills like swallowing.
 
Levering’s deafness was caused by an abundance of scar tissue on his auditory nerve. He also sustained cortical vision impairment (CVI), which affects how the brain processes visual information. Levering wears glasses with thick prisms to counter the double vision caused by the condition.
 
“I really try to do the best I can and just prove that I am able to do things even though I do have disabilities,” Levering said. “It just means I do things a little bit differently.”
 
After seeing their son on life support and hearing from doctors that Isaac would likely be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life, the Leverings witnessed determination in his recovery. He began to defy some of the ominous forecasts for his future.
 
“I think because of his tenacity he started to walk and recover and so on and so forth,” Dale Levering said. “We had to have some special schooling to get him caught back up. I do think the brain injury shut some things off. It shut off his hearing. He’s legally blind and his thermostat, as I call it, is constantly cold. He will be cold in 90-degree weather.
 
“But it also kind of turned something on. I think he became more focused on life and wanted to move forward and fight for that. In some ways, most of his academic success has been because he can’t hear. I’ve been a college professor for 25 years or so, and I see he does the right things. Because he can’t hear, he reads the textbooks and takes notes. He’s kind of self-taught in that way. He still has some limitations, but he’s pretty vigorous.”
 

Levering basically missed his sixth-grade year in a regular classroom, and when he returned to school, the experience was initially different than his early elementary years.
 
“I was not in a classroom learning with my peers,” he said. “I was in a completely separate classroom and basically re-learning pretty much everything. It took me, I would say, until eighth grade or maybe into my freshman year to fully be able to reach the level of my peers.”
 
Levering’s development was enhanced by learning American Sign Language, which he proficiently comprehends and uses as a primary communication tool. He works with Dold and Rogers to receive statements and questions through signing, then provides oral responses to those who don’t sign.
 
His freshman year, Levering also began competing in forensics under former coach Betsy Dutton. He did that for two years before sitting out his junior season.
 
This school year, Levering tried debate for Sterling’s highly successful program under coach David Wilson. Levering was one of four Black Bear tandems to qualify for the Class 3-2-1A two-speaker state competition with sophomore Emmie Madden.
 
“This was his first year of doing debate and I think it’s pretty clear to me Isaac has super powers in dealing with that hearing issue,” Wilson said prior to the state tournament. “He’s developed skills that have enabled him to adapt with that.”
 
Levering credited Madden’s ability to quickly relay pertinent information to him as a factor in making them a successful team.
 
“The biggest disadvantage for me in debate is there’s a very large communication barrier,” Levering said. “I need a lot of technology – speech-to-text technology – to be able to communicate with people because of my hearing, or I need an interpreter.
 
“I would say at the same time, it’s kind of a strength because it really allows me to focus on what we’re doing. It limits the distractions that I have. It’s also made me a lot more attuned to the way people act, their facial expressions, their body language. That gives me a wealth of information, more than you’d be able to derive from just hearing someone.”
 
Levering, who played golf for the Black Bears his junior year, returned to forensics this year. He finished fifth in oration at this week’s Heart of America League meet in Sedgwick.
 
“That’s really been a very good thing for Isaac,” Dale Levering said. “We were told at one point that because of his deafness he might forget how to speak. Mr. Wilson has helped Isaac to continue to be able to speak and enunciate and maybe be able to slow down his speech. We’ve noticed a large difference from maybe two years ago in Isaac’s verbal communication skills vs. today.”
 
Levering’s high school experiences have included a stint with a sign language club and as a member of the school chess team. Outside of school, Levering was one of 25 students from across the state who participated last summer in the Kansas Youth Leadership Forum for Students with Disabilities at Washburn University in Topeka.
 
The forum’s agenda exposed participants to sessions on topics like self-advocacy and employment strategies as well as leadership development.
 
“It was great to be able to connect with people like myself who have some type of disability,” said Levering, the forum’s lone completely deaf participant. “There was a lot of information about living with a disability. It gave me a lot of information and knowledge that I can really employ in the future.
 
“It did a lot to encourage people to step up and be leaders in their community. We do indeed have the ability, we have the capacity to do that. They did an amazing job of bringing that out in people and showing us that despite any disabilities you have, you can still be a very upstanding member of society and a very upstanding member of the community.”
 
Levering plans to attend Wichita State in the fall and study computer science with hopes of becoming a software developer. His own experiences and reliance on technology have served as motivation.
 
“I use technology a lot and I see how the broader deaf community and people with disabilities in general rely on technology,” he said. “So I really want to work on improving and enriching that experience to make it more beneficial.”
 
As part of work-based learning experiences for Sterling seniors, Levering got a job as a part-time associate at the Sterling Free Public Library. He leaves school at 1:45 p.m. each day and spends three hours assisting with the organization of the library’s collection as well as checking in and out books from patrons.
 
To accommodate Levering, the library posted a sign informing visitors of his hearing condition. He also wears a pager that sends a wireless signal when visitors enter the building so he can be available to assist them.
 
Levering is one of two Sterling high school students who is hard of hearing. The other, junior Chelsie Brown, won the Class 3-2-1A girls tennis singles title last fall with a 36-0 record.
 
“It’s been really great to at least have someone here who kind of has a shared experience,” Levering said. “Where I live there’s not a lot of people I can really connect with on that level. In that sense, it’s been great to know Chelsie.
 
“She’s very athletic and doesn’t allow being hard of hearing to hold her back. She’s really great at tennis and really excels at that. That’s been very inspiring to me and still is because it shows me that just because I’m deaf, it does not necessarily mean that I cannot be really, really good at something.”
 
During high school, Levering has participated in a Big Buddies mentoring program through the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America chapter. He was paired with a second-grader at Sterling Grade School who is also hard of hearing.
 
Such encounters have left the Leverings appreciative of the school experience Isaac has been able to forge since his accident.
 
“The Sterling school system has gone above and beyond,” Dale Levering said. “They’ve laid everything out for Isaac. They have taken a direct interest in him. We have no complaints. The Sterling school system has been outstanding and phenomenal as far as helping someone with disabilities, and that’s to their credit.”
 
That gratitude is shared by Isaac, who said his own faith has been fortified during these years of recovery and ongoing development.
 
“My family has done a lot to motivate and encourage my faith, which has really been a great ally, a great influence through this,” he said. “From those experiences and that outlook I do see there’s hope in the future.
 
“I think I’ve really been able to just rise to the challenge, I guess you could say. I’ve really made the most of what opportunities and what resources I have. I really have no regrets about how my life has played out so far.”