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Editor's Note: Neighbors is a series that showcases the lives of local residents. If you know of individuals or families who you think others in the community would like to know about, contact Smithville Editor Nancy Rigdon at 532-4444 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Chances are, you’ve seen the result of Deborah Garrison’s efforts.

The new ramp in the back of Smithville’s City Hall. Handicap parking stalls around town. Wider sidewalks, building doorways and store aisles. Handicap accessible bathrooms.

Many of these local changes have at least one commonality: Garrison pushed for them.

Through in-person conversations, e-mails to the right people and connections with the right people, the wheelchair-bound 48-year-old effectively advocates for those with disabilities.

“I figure I am doing all this for the people who can’t speak for themselves. A lot of people with disabilities don’t have the big mouth I do or the capabilities I do,” Garrison said.

Six years ago, Garrison had a traumatic, life-changing surgery. Complications from diabetes led to an above-the-knee amputation of her left leg. She moved from Kansas City to Smithville shortly after. Sometimes she wears a prosthetic leg. Other times, she does not.

“Because I’m in a wheelchair, people sometimes assume that I’m not intelligent,” she said.

That infuriates her.

“I lost my leg, not my brain,” she said.

Bob Foreman, a Smithville Board of Aldermen member who serves on the Smithville Disability Advisory Committee with Garrison, is one of those people Garrison contacts when she sees obstacles for those with disabilities. Many times, he’s helped turn Garrison’s requests into reality.

“Debbie looks out for people with disabilities. When she calls me, it’s not just about her. It’s about the people she shares the disabilities with,” Foreman said.

If you’ve seen a woman with short black hair in a motorized wheelchair with an orange flag on the back around town, it was probably Garrison.

There’s much more to Garrison aside from being the Smithville woman in the wheelchair who advocates for the rights of those with disabilities.

A talented singer and piano player, she’s the music director at Paradise Baptist Church in Paradise. She loves to fish, read — particularly the Bible — and learn new languages. Currently, she’s teaching herself Hebrew.

She majored in music and music education at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar and worked various jobs in the past, from training bus drivers to working the register at a convenience store. Her health has prevented her from a paying job in recent years.

Those who know Garrison well talk about everything she does for others.

Carolyn Forsyth, who owns B&B Marine with her husband, Bill, has known Garrison since she first arrived in Smithville. The couple gave Garrison rides to church when they attended Paradise Baptist. Garrison goes to the grocery store every Sunday for an elderly man, she said. And she’ll come in the couple’s business to help answer phones.

“She would do anything she could for anybody,” Forsyth said.

Vickie Blanton, who works at B&B Marine, added, “And she’s not afraid to speak her mind.”

“Oh, no, she’s not,” Forsyth said as the two laughed. “She knows how to make things happen.”

Something Garrison has relentlessly pushed for during the past few years will come to fruition later this summer. The Missouri Department of Transportation will build a crosswalk across U.S. Highway 169, right in front of Big V Country Mart.

Two years ago, Garrison and an official with the transportation department exchanged heated e-mails on the topic. In one e-mail, the official referred to Garrison’s request for a crosswalk at the location as “unwarranted.”

Her response included the following.

“I don’t find this traffic signal ‘unwarranted’ but then obviously you have never had to walk too many places in your life,” she wrote. “I will continue to work on this. You can expect to hear from me again albeit through other sources.”

A few weeks ago, Garrison learned the crosswalk was a go. She was near the post office when Foreman spotted her.

“He came running toward me, waving his hands all excited, saying, ‘Debbie, did you hear? We got it, we got it,’” Garrison recalled with a satisfied smile.

Why she likes Smithville:

“The people are all friendly,” she said. “People might know that I’m poor, but they don’t treat me like I’m poor. People treat me like I’m one of them.”

Her philosophy of life:

“Everybody is the same as everybody else in that everybody has something that holds them back. Mine is that I lost a leg . . . I heard a quote one time that said something like, ‘The only difference between people who are happy and people who are unhappy is the way they look at things.’ And I am not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself. I’m going to be happy.”


Smithville Herald Editor Nancy Hull Rigdon can be reached at 532-4444 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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