Seeing Burgon: Blind, deaf teen lives her life to the fullest

Where do we begin a story about Burgon Jensen?

We could start with a cursory introduction: She's an 18-year-old honors student at Hillcrest High School.

We could describe some of her activities — she rides horses, skis, rock climbs, shops, hikes, and reads and writes prolifically, among other things. If you really want to know who she is, read her poetry. (You will if you read on.) She also sang and danced in a school play and was voted to the school's Peer Leadership Team by her peers.

We could continue the introduction with a description — she is slender, with long, silky hair the color of honey and vivid blue eyes that tremble but do not see.

Oh, and we could also mention that Burgon Jensen is blind and deaf. (Now go back and reread the previous paragraphs.)

Burgon is as pleasant as a Sunday morning — serene, guileless, humorous and perceptive — and everyone who interacts with her tends to gush like this:

"She's one of the most inspirational students I've ever worked with," says Karen Brown, a teacher and counselor for 28 years who works at Hillcrest High. "It's not because she's blind and I feel sorry for her. There's something about her. Everyone sees this specialness in her."

"People are so drawn to her," says Burgon's mother Katie. "Adults, more so. So many people have commented on her charisma or aura."

Let's take care of some business before we proceed. Burgon was born with retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive disorder that eventually leads to blindness and sometimes hearing loss, as well.

She was diagnosed as legally blind at 3 months, and doctors fitted her with tiny glasses. ("She looked like a Cabbage Patch baby," says her mother Katie.) She remembers colors now only as emotions. She lost all of her sight during her fourth and fifth years — about the same time she began to lose her hearing. Over time she needed increasingly stronger hearing aids, which provided limited sound — she could hear if someone talked closely and directly into her right ear and there was no other noise in the room. About 18 months ago, her hearing dropped dramatically to almost nothing.