Ray McGeorge figured he could do practically anything. For 40 years he tried to get other blind people to believe they could do the same.
McGeorge, who died June 18, told one blind man, “What do you mean you can’t operate a chain saw?” recalled Kevan Worley, who knew McGeorge for decades.
A service for McGeorge is planned today at 10 a.m. at Mile Hi Church of Religious Science.
McGeorge, who, with his wife, Diane, founded the Colorado Center for the Blind, died at a hospice after suffering from meningitis and a stroke. He was 80.
McGeorge worked for years as a turret lathe operator for a local manufacturing company. But he gave thousands of hours to help at the Colorado Center for the Blind, which teaches people everything from using a white cane to getting a job.
Before blind people gained some stature in society, “they were relegated to the back porch. Or if they were lucky, they learned to play the piano,” said Worley, blind since birth.
Worley said he was 30 when McGeorge taught him how to tie a tie. “I was going to a job interview and Ray followed me to the bus stop and we stayed there until I learned,” Worley said.
“Ray had such an indomitable spirit, and you weren’t done learning until Ray was done teaching,” Worley said.
McGeorge lobbied before the legislature about issues for the blind such as access to voting and programs for seniors and children. He successfully pushed for a state Commission for the Blind.
“Ray and Diane were my daughter’s first role models,” said Julie Hunter of Denver, whose daughter, Lauren Hunter, gradually went blind by age 10. “They helped her develop confidence, and she was back in school in the second grade.”
“He never gave up, not for a minute,” when it came to helping the blind, Diane McGeorge, who has been blind since age 2, said of her husband. “He had high expectations” for everyone he worked with.
Raymond Wesley McGeorge was born in Loveland on Feb. 28, 1930.
He lost his sight at 13 when he picked up what he thought was a flashlight. It was a tear-gas canister, and it blew up in his face.
He attended the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind in Colorado Springs and Emily Griffith Opportunity School in Denver. He married Diane Chval in 1954.
McGeorge regained his eyesight for 22 years with a cornea transplant when he was in his 40s, but the blindness returned.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a grandson, two great-grandchildren and a brother, Ivan. He was preceded in death by both of his sons, Bryan and Skip, and a granddaughter.
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Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
