Richards, Miriam

Grew up in Victoria, BC; attended Gallaudet University and Oregon State University, graduating the latter with a forestry degree. Taught sign language part-time at OSU and worked at other odd jobs in between her hobby of mountain climbing. As of May 20o4, she had scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mt. Aconcagua in South America, and was near completing her objective of "highpointing", climbing the tallest peak in each of all 50 US states. Despite a disastrous fall on Mt. Hood, OR, in 1995 that left her hospitalized for months and in rehabilitation for over a year, by mid-2004 she had only Mt. Rainier, WA, and Denali, AK left to go. If she succeeded, she would be one of only about 130 people to achieve it, and the first deaf one. Although diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003, she refused to let MS stop her.