Stop Trying To Make Girl In Wheelchair ‘Normal,’ Parents Told

CORYDON, IA — What’s normal? For a 12-year-old girl who uses a wheelchair because she was born with the children’s version of ALS, normal isn’t that different than it is for other rural Iowa kids. Stella Turnbull took her goat, Lou, to the Southern Iowa Fair and came home with grand-champion ribbons and banners.

Livestock showing is a sometimes cut-throat activity that breeds fierce rivalries. If Stella hadn’t won the top prize, her parents don’t think they would have received an anonymous letter telling them to “stop trying to make [their] daughter normal.”

The vile missive, which mom Sarah Turnbull posted on Facebook, claimed Stella hadn’t put any work into raising and caring for the goat, and that competing at the fair was for “the parents’ glory.”

The letter's author even threatened to contact PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), an animal-rights organization that many farmers see as a radicalized group of activists threatening their way of life.

For Stella to take the goat into the show ring, her motorized wheelchair was retrofitted with a platform for Lou to place her front legs. Stella can’t groom or feed Lou, but she did train the goat to use the platform and walk with her.

“Stella worked her goat to the best of her ability and had to practice at night so Lou would learn to walk with front feet on cart and so she didn’t run Lou over,” Sarah Turnbull wrote. “No goat will be calm and happy doing that unless it’s comfortable! The goat cart isn’t inhumane — no different than a kid with a halter. Had Stella not won (which would have still been an amazing experience for Stella), we probably wouldn’t have received such a letter.”

The Turnbulls told news station WHO-TV they might have simply discarded the anonymous diatribe if not for the line telling them to stop trying to make their child “normal.”

“What is normal?” dad Travis Turnbull told the news outlet. “To us, you need to just go out and do your best. If nothing else, it motivates me even more to make sure she can do everything that everyone else can do.”

Without dwelling on the letter, Sarah Turnbull said she hopes others with disabilities will be motivated not to accept others’ notions of limitations.

“We hope the fact that she was able to do this just inspires others to not give up and being able to help others say, ‘OK, we can do this,’ ” Sarah Turnbull said.

Two years ago, Alec Gotto, a Dyersville, Iowa, boy about Stella’s age, got a much different response after he led his 1,400-pound steer from his wheelchair at an Iowa State Fair event. Alec, now 13, won the People’s Choice Award at the Governor’s Charity Steer Show, but also the hearts of people around the country.

Alec’s wheelchair was also altered so he could show his steer. The animal was attached to a metal bar at the base of the chair with Zip ties that could be cut if the steer was spooked, keeping the boy safe.

The steer show was the fourth one Alec and J.D., as the calf was known, competed in that year. They had been at the fairgrounds in Des Moines a month prior for the National Junior Angus Show, where a photo posted on social media by a spectator was labeled “one of the most memorable, inspirational and emotional moments ... ever witnessed in this great business.”

No one told Alec’s parents they should stop trying to make him normal.

“I can tell you I had goosebumps,” Doug Bear, the directory of industry for the Iowa Beef Council, told the Des Moines Register at the time. “Definitely, it was one of the top memorable moments of any of the Governor’s Charity Steer Shows I’ve coordinated.”

Last year, supporters of the boy raised enough money for an electric, all-terrain wheelchair on tracks that will make it possible for Alec to show his cattle without the assistance of others.

Alec’s mother, Carrie Gotto, told the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier last year that the chair will give her son more independence to do the things he loves, like showing cattle

“Alec’s new chair will help him get around the farm and other places he couldn’t go before,” she said. “Now, we won’t have to worry about him tipping over, and he will be able to maneuver through the wood chips and not be dependent on someone to help him.”