BLIND AMBITION SCHOLAR FEELS, HEARS WAY TO LIFE AS WINNER.

Byline: Rachel Uranga and Helen Gao Staff Writers

WEST HILLS - Fifteen-year-old Heather Bandy skis, whitewater rafts, rock climbs and deep-sea fishes. She is also blind and an award-winning Braille reader who just finished a year as an academic standout at Birmingham High School.

Having won the Braille Institute of America's regional contests two years in a row, Bandy on Saturday competed in the first national Braille Challenge Invitational for 55 students from throughout the United States and Canada. She was selected to compete from more than 300 contestants.

Reading in bulkier Braille normally takes twice as long as reading by sight, but Bandy's teachers say she is quicker than most. In an hour Bandy, who has been reading Braille since the age of 3, can devour 80 pages, while most other Braille readers struggle to read about half that amount.

Only 24 percent of visually impaired children are Braille readers, according to the staff of the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Ky.

The Braille competition tests the speed and accuracy with which impaired students read text, charts and graphs. In Saturday's national competition, contestants were tested in reading comprehension, proofreading, speed and accuracy, chart and graph reading.

Blind since birth, Bandy carried a book bag and a white cane through the crowded hallways of Birmingham High in Van Nuys, navigating the vast campus on her own.

``I don't think it's an obstacle,'' she said about blindness. ``I don't think it takes courage.''

While other teenagers are getting their driver's licenses and working out paths to independence, Bandy finds her own route to freedom through words and ideas.

She enrolls in advanced-placement classes. In the fall, she plans to transfer to Reseda High School and join the Academic Decathlon team there.

``Most people might be discouraged,'' said her father, Michael Bandy. ``But when she keeps running into a problem, she keeps going and going and going.''

She grinned at the compliment and half-blushed as she sat in her tidy West Hills living room.

``I don't do normal teenage things,'' she said. ``I am not into fashion. I am into academics. I guess what you consider me is a nerd.

``I don't try to pretend to be someone I am not. What's different between me and the sighted kids is that I am socially inept. I can't start a conversation.''

While she talked, her older sister Nicole, who attends Reseda High, where their mother, Amanda, works as an administrative assistant, sat at a dining room table drawing a poster for a science project on the importance of tree planting.

Joy Efron, who oversees the program for the visually impaired in the Los Angeles Unified School District, said most sight-deficient students in the huge LAUSD attend classes along with sighted students in about 270 local public schools.

``We are the pioneers of mainstreaming. We have been mainstreaming for over 100 years,'' said Efron. ``In society, we have blind people do everything except drive.''

Efron said that to help visually impaired students fit in, sensitivity training is provided for their teachers and classmates - stressing to them, for example, the need to verbalize what they are doing. ``There are cues that are missed (if you are visually impaired). There's a lot we (the sighted) learn from watching and observing,'' said Efron. ``(Mainstreaming) does require a lot of stick-to-it-ness by a blind person, and it does require a lot of support, which we provide.''

For example, when a visually impaired student is transferred to a new campus, a specialist helps the student establish familiar paths.

Visually impaired students are also trained in social interactions to help them communicate better with sighted people.

Most visually impaired students in the LAUSD do not have one-on-one aides. Bandy takes her own notes in class with Braille equipment, and her teachers have tests and assignments translated into Braille.

Doris Lasiter, principal of Birmingham, said visually impaired students are generally well accepted on campus.

``They are just so well integrated into the total culture of the school,'' she said. ``They are in all of our clubs. They have total access to everything we do.''

At school, Bandy usually hangs out with 16-year-old Latasha Bense, her longtime friend who is visually impaired because of a genetic condition called aniridia.

``I trust her with everything,'' Bense said about Bandy. ``In the sixth grade, we would be going from class to class with our canes. People would be jumping over our canes. Something like that, she understands.''

Anita Wright, youth services coordinator at the Braille Institute in Hollywood, said Bandy stands out not only for her keen intelligence but also for her persistence and tenacity.

``There is nothing she can't do when she puts her mind to it,'' Wright said.

The most graphic example of that are the 90-feet-high boulders in Joshua Tree National Park, which she climbs year after year with the verbal guidance of a sighted climber.

``At first, she didn't understand it,'' Wright said. ``How do you explain this huge formation to someone who is blind? She had never felt that kind of rock.''

Rachel Uranga, [phone]

rachel.uranga(at)dailynews.com

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5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Heather Bandy, 15, born blind, squares off in a doorway, above, at Reseda High, which she'll attend as a sophomore. She was an academic standout as a freshman at Birmingham High. At left, her mom leads her while a trainer, Bryan Klinesteker, watches.

(3 -- 5 -- color) Heather Bandy uses her cane as she learns her way around Reseda High, which she'll attend as a sophomore. She was an academic standout as a Birmingham High School freshman. At top right, she enjoys air hockey with her best friend, Latasha Bense, at Latasha's home.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer