Richard Joy, honored by Reagan, Ford, dies at 73

Richard Dwight Joy Jr. was deaf and blind, but didn’t let that limit him.

He ran, swam and wrestled competitively, bicycled, and had a nearly three-?decade career at Hewlett-?Packard and Agilent, calibrating heart monitors and other instruments.

He cooked and built large model railroad layouts in his Rohnert Park backyard and was a ham radio operator who communicated by Morse code.

He was singled out with awards from former Gov. Ronald Reagan and President Gerald Ford in 1974, according to the Northern California Association of Deaf-Blind, an organization with which he was active.

Joy, 73, died Jan. 16 at home as a result of the melanoma he was diagnosed with a few days after Christmas.

“He was just a remarkable guy,” said Joyce Neifert, a sign language interpreter who became his friend more than 20 years ago and was awed by his independence.

“I used to tell him that, ‘To me, you are like Helen Keller,’?” she said. “There wasn’t anything Rick couldn’t and wouldn’t do.”

Born in Chicago, Joy was stricken with spinal meningitis at the age of 3 and wasn’t expected to live, according to his younger brother, Mike Joy.

He lost his hearing and part of his sight, along with the ability to speak and interact, until around the age of 11.

“I became his eyes and ears from the time I was able to communicate,” his brother said. “He kind of lived through my normal senses.”

From the ages of 11 to 17, Rich Joy attended the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, according to his brother. He was legally blind for most of his youth with severe tunnel vision, and by the time he was 18, had completely lost his sight.

None of it stopped him from becoming an Eagle Scout.

He was able to communicate through sign language and by touching the person’s hand who was signing.

“He would know what the sign was half the time before they did it,” his brother said.

For those who didn’t know sign language, Joy used Tadoma, a tactile interpreting method in which he could put his thumb on a person’s lips and his two fingers on their throat to discern what they were saying.

He also knew Braille.

“He never considered himself handicapped, let alone double handicapped,” Mike Joy said. “He considered deafness and blindness to be another trait.”

“He was a happy person,” he added. “He never felt there was something he couldn’t do.”

Rich Joy’s sense of touch was extremely sensitive, and he could tell when someone entered a room through the air disturbance and vibrations.

He studied electronics and graduated from Santa Rosa Junior College in 1974. He was hired at ?Hewlett-Packard in Santa Rosa and used a modified oscilloscope that allowed him to work by touch to calibrate heart monitors and other instruments.

“His monitors were far more accurate than a person who was sighted and could hear,” his brother said.

Rich Joy was athletic for much of his life, running on tracks, for instance, by placing his hand on another runner’s arm or shoulder.

As a wrestler, he could sense a muscle change in his opponent that betrayed the rival’s next move. “He would be able to shift his weight to prevent that from happening,” his brother said. “He was an excellent wrestler.”

“He had so much energy he would exhaust me,” said Neifert, adding that the first time she rode with him on a tandem bicycle, “his legs were like pistons.”

Despite his challenges, Joy could navigate and even give people turn-by-turn directions in a car.

Neifert said she got lost and took the wrong freeway once on the way back from San Leandro with Joy and they wound up in Berkeley.

“He gave me all the directions,” she said. “He went to the Berkeley School for the Blind. He knew where we were. He navigated us home.”

In addition to his brother, Mike, who lives in Chicago, Joy is survived by his wife, Wendy Joy, and daughter, Jackie Joy, 11, both of Rohnert Park.

Graveside services will be at 1:15 p.m. Saturday at Santa Rosa Memorial Park.

A reception will immediately follow at Congregational Church of Christ, 2000 Humboldt St.