PORT ANGELES — A newly minted Lincoln High School graduate who might have been limited by her past silence has found a voice and inspired her classmates.

Katie Gilbert-Lord, 21, was selected as a student speaker for last Thursday’s Lincoln High School graduation at the Little Theater at Peninsula College.

“I have cerebral palsy, but that is just one piece of me. Don’t let one piece of you define who you are,” she said in her commencement speech, delivered via an electronic device.

Gilbert-Lord, the daughter of Denny and Dagny Lord of Port Angeles, uses technology to communicate, since her body won’t always cooperate with physical speech or traditional sign language.

She speaks using adapted sign language and with a “talker” device similar to that used by physicist Stephen Hawking.

Gilbert-Lord’s success in completing high school, along with those she inspired during her years there, is due in part to the introduction of new technology to help people with disabilities that make it difficult to communicate either verbally or through sign language.

Denny and Dagny Lord took Gilbert-Lord in as a foster child from the age of 18 months to the age of 16, when her adoption was approved, Dagny Lord said.

However, her ability to progress academically was limited by her physical disabilities that restricted her communication to simple sign language and yes or no answers.

Gilbert-Lord attended the Bridge School in Hillsborough, Calif., for two and a half years, where she learned to communicate through the talker and to control her own wheelchair using head movements.

Gilbert-Lord operates the talker device by moving her head to navigate a computer screen and select letters, words or phrases, which are then spoken by an electronic voice.

It opened up her world.

“It made me happy because I can talk to people, and about what I want and what I don’t want,” Gilbert-Lord said.

Once she was able to communicate using the talker, she was able to enter a regular education program, and at Lincoln High School was able to earn her diploma before she aged-out of the school system.

Because of the long process of learning to use the technology, then systematically using the program to write essays, take exams and respond to questions, it takes longer to get through the system.

Gilbert-Lord said last Wednesday she was excited to graduate then go to work at the Korean Women’s Association, where she works with filing and shredding documents.

With fellow graduate Brooke Horn, she took the stage Thursday to make her speech, which they shared in a discussion format.

Horn is one of two students so inspired by Gilbert-Lord that they decided to continue to work with those with disabilities.

“Katie, we have all grown from the experience we have had with you here at Lincoln. We will all forever be changed for the gifts you have given us,” Horn said.

During an interview, Horn said she was ready to drop out of high school, then discovered Lincoln and got to know Gilbert-Lord.

Now, she plans to attend Peninsula College then transfer to Gonzaga University in Spokane to become a special education teacher.

“I think people need someone they can lean on and trust. I want to help other people,” she said during an interview last Wednesday.

Cassie White, another classmate, is also following a path that includes working with people with disabilities.

White, 18, met Gilbert-Lord through Horn and also has developed a friendship, which she said includes pranks and jokes, usually at White or Horn’s expense.

“Katie’s not that different except for her disability,” White said.

White said she arrived at Lincoln struggling with school and getting low grades but has improved to getting As and Bs in most of her classes.

She will work this summer as a camp counselor at Camp Beausite Northwest, a summer camp in Chimacum for people with disabilities.

White doesn’t yet know where her path will lead once the summer is over, but she said she intends to eventually attend classes at Peninsula College.

Under federal law, the public school system allows students to remain in classes through age 21, as long those age 18 and older are continuously working toward their diploma, and it guarantees education through age 21 for those with disabilities.

Lincoln School specializes in helping students who have transferred into the district without enough credits to graduate, those who have struggled in traditional education settings or those who are returning to school after leaving other schools.

Gilbert-Lord was the first “medically fragile” student at Lincoln, said Cindy Crumb, principal.

Crumb said she was at first concerned about how students at the school would receive her, but they have responded in the best ways.

Students at the school embraced her as a person and began including her in their social activities, including typical teen sleepovers, she said.

It wasn’t hard to see past the disability, Horn said

“I realized she’s just like me,” she said.

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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.