Every year at the Orangeburg County Fair, Mid-Carolina Office Equipment Inc. has tried to highlight the accomplishments of area youth.

“Mission: Possible,” this year’s display, focused on the achievements of kids who face a world of difficulties due to death, illness or other obstacles.

“I’m sick of hearing all the bad. I want to hear some good stories,” said Lydia Granger, co-owner of Mid-Carolina, who designed the display. “Anything is possible with encouragement. We want to encourage children through those who have accomplished the impossible.”

The stories were sent in by local educators and tell of children, most times in their own words, and the struggles they have faced – and continue to overcome – in life. Participants received a gift basket from Mid-Carolina.

“We would hope that their stories will encourage others to set their goals high and reach for the stars,” a note welcoming those to the booth said. “Every child can succeed and be the best they can be.”

Granger should know the impossible can be achieved, as she has seen it with her own eyes – in her own family.

Little Cassy Laine Zeigler, 2, Granger’s granddaughter, has overcome many hurdles in her short life.

Born 15 weeks premature and weighing just 1 pound, 12 ounces, doctors initially told the family Cassy wouldn’t live beyond 48 hours, and when she did, that she would not see, respond or walk.

She spent 86 days in the newborn intensive care unit at Richland Memorial. Her family was told she would go home with a ventilator, feeding tube and a heart monitor.

However, when the time came to discharge Cassy, the baby went home with only the heart monitor.

“She’s come so far,” said Cassy’s mother, Shannon Zeigler, of her little one’s accomplishments. Now Cassy can smile, follow directions and even say some words, like “Gra” when she’s referring to Granger. Cassy’s father is Tim Zeigler.

While Cassy struggles with a seizure disorder and reflux disease, as well as bilateral periventricular leukomalacia and cerebral palsy, she has been fitted for boots, which family members see as a sign that Cassy may one day walk. She attends therapy twice a week and has home visits.

“If I could talk to you, I would tell you to never give up,” her story said. “All things are possible.”

Two 5th-grade girls featured in the exhibit lost their mothers when they were young and told of how they longed to simply talk with their moms.

“Every night I think about her and sometimes I see her in my sleep and sometimes I don’t,” one of them said. “So I get very angry when people talk about her. I miss my mom very much.”

Other children have had to deal with emotional pain such as relocation, divorce, poor choices and physical illness, including stroke, heart surgery, leukemia and osteochondrosis.

Although she suffered a spinal cord defect at birth that left her as a quadriplegic, one fourth-grader at Sheridan Elementary School doesn’t let that stop her.

She has been nominated for the S.C. Elementary Choir, was third runner-up at the Junior Idol singing competition in Orangeburg, was the recipient of Sheridan’s Jacob’s Ladder of Inspiration Award and has won several beauty pageants at the local, state and national level.

“(She) endured numerous hospitalizations, some involving surgeries, others for pneumonia, and other, more serious complications. (She) was at many times not expected to live,” her story said. “Of all of her accomplishments, her greatest has been the ability to overcome her inabilities to do the normal things in life such as walking, talking and breathing independently.

“She continues to make progress physically, academically and spiritually. She has been a blessing and inspiration to many people.”

A student at Branchville High School wrote that for the first 17 years of her life, she has dealt with many physical and medical problems that involve her having to take medications daily.

She has been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, hypoparathyroidism, growth hormone deficiency, vision problems, congenital radial head dislocation, frequent ear infections that ultimately led to her having 50 percent hearing loss in her right ear and juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that required her to temporarily use a wheelchair.

“Throughout all of this, my family was there for me with great love and support,” she said. “They told me that God made me special and that I would be a much stronger person for having to deal with everything I have gone through.

“There were plenty of times I doubted this. I didn’t want to be special, I just wanted to be normal.”

But she said the strength she has gained through her trust in God has allowed her to become a “social butterfly” who has played high school softball, competed in all Branchville Raylrode Daze beauty pageants, “survive(d)” her parent’s divorce, works to graduate from high school a year early and get a boyfriend.

“To all I just want to say ... be strong and hold your head up through it all ... ,” she said. “A note to the young, keep God first and he will never let you down ...”

Granger hopes the display will become a staple at the Mid-Carolina fair booth, with community members actively participating and sharing their stories.

“All children have potential,” she said. “I just think the world would be a better place if we just stop and praise a child for their accomplishments.”

-- T&D Staff Writer Wendy Jeffcoat can be reached by e-mail at wjeffcoat@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-534-1060. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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