Photograph by George Sakkestad
On The Move host Donna Yeager, left, talks with guest Kathy Manucal before the show.
By LESTER CHANG
Donna Yeager was born with no arms or legs , but she hasn't let her disability stop her from leading a full life.
With help from her parents, and bolstered by an inner drive to overcome life's obstacles, she has spoken out for the rights of the disabled in college, lives independently of her parents in her South Bay home and has worked as a dispatcher at Hewlett-Packard for 12 years.
"Whenever someone said I couldn't do something, I did it," she said. "Disabled people are alive and valid. In many ways, we are as normal as regular people."
That concept is perhaps the main thrust behind On the Move, an award-winning weekly television program produced in Sunnvyale, started by Yeager eight years ago.
Its chief aim is to promote the idea that disabled people can become independent and productive members of society.
Yeager's show is the only show of its kind in the Santa Clara Valley that spotlights the disabled. Able Cable Productions, based in Sunnyvale, has produced 150 shows over the last eight years.
The show can be seen in Sunnyvale on TCI channel 29 on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.
The show, generally produced at the Television Center at De Anza College, is cablecast on the Cupertino Community TV Channel 26 in Cupertino and Los Altos.
It also is broadcast on public television station KTEH (Channel 54) in Santa Clara County at 6 a.m. Sunday, and has been a regular feature on the Community College Satellite Network,which reaches major metropolitan areas throughout the United States.
The show is also cablecast by the Berkeley Community Media, Viacom Marin, and the Neighborhood Network in New York city, as well as in Monterey, Santa Monica and Tampa..
Segments also have been shown in Germany.
Perhaps Yeager's biggest supporters are her father and mother, Don and Jeanne, who have helped her produce the show. Up to 20 volunteers, some also physically challenged, play key roles in producing On the Move.
The show has stories about disabled people, recreational activities for disabled people and technology that benefits them.
Shows have been done on disabled people involved in skiing, sailing and skydiving. One show dealt with the use of a miniature computer keyboard. The instrument was mounted in a person's mouth and was manipulated by tongue.
The show has many loyal watchers because it deals with the underdog,Yeager said.
The first show of the year, produced on Jan. 6, followed the rehabilitation of Kathy Manucal.
Manucal, a guest on the show, was shot in the head in December 1995 and was paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors told her she would be confined to a wheelchair the rest of her life.
Manucal set her mind to walking again.
After a year of rehabilitation that has included swimming at the Timpany Center in San Jose, she is now able to stand.
Manucal is engaged to marry Bob Kasper, a traffic specialist with Hewlett-Packard, in August. Her hope is to walk down the aisle in a church wedding.
"It is important for me to show people that people with disabilities shouldn't ever give up," Manucal said.
Yeager came to that conclusion herself in 1977, when she graduated from Lake Taylor High School in Virginia. "I thought then that I could either sit back or do something positive for myself and the disabled," she said.
After moving to California, she enrolled at De Anza College and became president of the Disabled Students Union, an advocacy group for disabled student rights. Over the next 10 years, she found a job, a home and friends that would allow her to pursue her dream of a television program.
She drew strength from her mom, who helps write stories for the show, and her father, a retired 32-year Navy veteran and former wing commander for NATO. Both live in Sunnyvale.
As for her show, Yeager plans to do more segments on recreational sports disabled people can get into. Her personal life is equally bright.
She's engaged to Joe Hengel, a mechanical engineer who saw her show in Germany two months ago and fell in love with her.
"Life is wonderful," Yeager said. "You have to go for it."
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 15, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.