You may know Brent Easdon as a member of the Cleburne ISD school board or as a lieutenant with the city of Cleburne’s Fire Department.

But you may not know the personal battles he has fought in his lifetime.

Easdon suffers from severe dyslexia.

Dyslexia is a neurological learning disability, not an intellectual one, that causes difficulty in reading and writing.

Those with dyslexia see letters and numbers mixed up, clumped together or distorted. The material must be reorganized mentally to comprehend its meaning.

An educational program in CISD now helps dyslexic students. It did not exist when Easdon attended school.

Through prayer and determination, the fireman has learned to deal with it.

Helping others is what he does.

He agreed to talk about what he has overcome in hope of encouraging someone else.

For the last five years Easdon has built ramps for the disabled through Christmas in Action on his days off from Firehouse 2 on Nolan River Road.

He is a paramedic and a worker with the youth at Westhill Church of Christ, where he is a deacon.

Easdon was born in Snyder in 1961 to Jim and Charlie Dell Easdon. He has a younger sister, Andrea Coleman.

“My dad owned a Dairy Queen there,” he said. “My mom worked in the store’s office and tells that she made a crib for me in her desk drawer. Later, they used gallon cans of syrup to make a playpen, with empty boxes as toys. When I outgrew all that, they hired a baby sitter.”

Jim Easdon had stores in Abilene and in Corpus Christi, where they lived when Brent started to elementary school and the red flags began to wave.

“I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t learn to read. I was diagnosed with dyslexia, but no one knew how to help you then. A medical doctor told my parents it was an eye problem and gave them exercise for me to do.”

He said a few minutes seemed like a lifetime as he patiently lay on the floor, forcing his eyes to follow a swinging tennis ball, suspended from the ceiling. Nothing helped.

He wore loafers in the third grade because he couldn’t learn to tie his shoes.

He stands 6 foot 4, and as a young child he was much taller than his classmates.

“There was no place to hide. When other kids call you ‘dumb,’ it really hurts. Since I couldn’t read, I couldn’t learn to write, either. I wasn’t good in sports. I really didn’t have anything going for me, and became very shy and withdrawn.”

As he grew older he learned to make fun of himself before anyone else did. He forced himself to smile and to even act the class clown. He let the insults roll off.

By high school he learned that if he worked more slowly and did a task two or three times he could get through it.

“But English was a miserable experience. I’ll never forget when an English teacher told me not to consider taking senior English because I wouldn’t be going to college, anyway. I was determined to prove her wrong.”

He was a member of the CHS Yellow Jackets basketball team his junior and senior years, graduating in 1981. He enrolled in Abilene Christian University.

“While in business math class I met Kim Hays from El Paso. She helped me, and I probably wouldn’t have passed the course without her. We became friends.”

They dated on an off and graduated from the university together in 1986.

“I brought Kim home, and she loved Cleburne,” Easdon said. “Some girls didn’t. I wanted to marry Kim and so we went for counseling.”

The counselor told them their marriage would never work. There were too many differences between them.

“We knew we could make it, and married in 1988, at Central Church of Christ in Cleburne,” Kim said. “I was tired of El Paso’s desert and was eager to move here. Brent had various jobs for awhile until he applied as a fireman. He’s worked his way up and loves what he does. He’s very skilled at it.”

The Easdons have been active in the Parent Teacher Association of Cleburne, and were in attendance at an attention deficit disorder seminar a few years ago when he made a startling discovery.

“The facilitator showed us some printing and asked us to read it. ‘As soon as you have finished reading it, please stand up,’ she said.

“I read it and stood up. Nobody else was standing. I thought, ‘I read it faster than anybody else! How about that?’ ”

No one else in the room could read it. The passage was printed as someone with dyslexia sees it, implying that some early misdiagnoses of ADD could actually be dyslexia.

“I couldn’t even figure out what the passage was,” Kim said. “Then I realized what Brent goes through to read anything.”

Brent smiled and said, “I make my world fit me now. I am not a procrastinator. I need more preparation time. I have to think on everything. I don’t sleep well because my mind won’t ramp down quickly.

“If I’m tired, don’t ask me to repeat anything; my chances are slim. If an address comes in the fire station I ask the caller to verify it, then I tell others. If we all agree, then we go.”

He has excelled in fire services, he believes, because of the influence of a previous partner, Randy Jordan.

“Randy was so outgoing and patient by nature. We were assigned fire prevention education for the schools. Until then I had been unable to speak before a group. I worked with a puppet show and found I could do it. No one could see me — it was all ad lib — and I related well to children. Later, I moved up to the front man where I spoke before audiences. It was a great feeling for me.”

He said he began to realize that one skill builds on another. He wanted to be able to read scripture at church and lead in Bible study. It was a fear he had to face.

Now he has conquered those fears. He leads in discussions, reads aloud and was invited to preach a lay sermon before Central merged with Anglin Street and West Side churches to form Westhill Church of Christ.

“The congregation was very responsive. I had attended that church since my childhood. I practiced and practiced and used a PowerPoint and felt comfortable with it. That fear had been faced.”

Now the fireman teaches children how to knot ropes and leads others in rappelling down the side of cliffs. He enjoys scuba diving on vacations.

He custom designs the ramps he builds but must work alone because of distractions.

He and Kim, who is manager of the National Theft Unit of Farmer’s Insurance in Grand Prairie, go to church camp each summer to teach, cook, care for medical needs, and lead activities.

One of Brent’s greatest honors, he said, was when he was chosen by his fellow firemen to take funds from the city of Cleburne to New York City after Sept 11, 2001.

After Katrina, he and others from his church took supplies to the disaster area.

“We beat the Red Cross there and were back home before FEMA came. We helped the Tammany Oaks Church of Christ in Madell, La., set up a warehouse and relocation center in their church.”

But an unexpected reward came his way a few years ago.

“A high school girl had been seriously injured in an auto accident. She was going to have to rehabilitate in a nursing home because she had no ramp and couldn’t go home. That would’ve been such a traumatic experience for a teenager. I built her a ramp and was glad to help.

“Later I was attending the TEAM School graduation as a CISD board member when a young woman and her mother came up to me. The girl hugged me and thanked me for the ramp. I was so surprised. That meant a lot to know she had finished high school.

“A previous lieutenant told me once that the fire service is where we are called upon to solve other people’s problems that they are unable to solve for themselves. We didn’t cause the problem. We will risk our lives to save another’s life, but we will not risk our lives to save property alone. City taxes pay for 9-1-1 calls. There is no charge if an ambulance isn’t needed.

“I’ve gotten a snake out of a tree and a puppy out of a dryer vent before, but that’s okay. Those are real problems at the time that people can’t solve for themselves.”

There were poignant times when Easdon worked on his days off to solve much bigger problems. A man in Keene had lost both legs.

He had to pull himself up the steps of his mobile home and leave his wheelchair behind. Jerry Becker told CIA about him, and Brent built him a ramp.

“I saw the man a few days later,” Becker said. “He was overjoyed that he could get into his home and use his wheelchair again. That made such a difference in his life.”

“I’m thankful for my family,” Brent said. “We have Dakota, 17, and Sierra, 12. I believe it is human nature to be as happy as we want to be. Like Psalms 118:24 says, “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

I thought about how unusual it was to hear a successful man humbly reveal his weakness. But, then, it fit the pattern. A fireman will sacrifice to help another.

On the Web:

www.dyslexia.com

This story was suggested by Dolores Stringer, Easdon’s sixth-grade teacher.

Larue Barnes may be reached at laruebarnes@yahoo.com.