Activist Wins High Post to Aid Disabled

Gov. Pete Wilson on Monday appointed longtime activist Brenda Premo of Stanton to be deputy director for independent living in the state Department of Rehabilitation.

The appointment tops a long list of accomplishments by Premo, 39, a disabled-rights advocate who is an albino and is classified as legally blind.

Premo was in Sacramento on Monday and could not be reached for comment.

In a 1990 interview, Premo said that in elementary school she was placed in a class for disabled children and left to function on her own. She added that she was simply viewed as a handicapped person, and not much was expected of her.

“My brains aren’t in my eyes. Yet somehow, if you have a disability, they think of you only as someone who is so incapable, so helpless. But I wasn’t going to lie down and give up, and say: ‘OK, system, take care of me. You owe it to me.’ ”

In 1979, Premo was hired as the first executive director of the Dayle McIntosh Center when it opened in Garden Grove. Now based in Anaheim, the center is a $1-million operation serving 1,500 people annually, most of whom are physically handicapped.

She also is a member of the National Council on Disability, the advisory panel appointed by the President that has been a driving force behind legislation since it was proposed to Congress in 1986.

Last summer, President Bush invited her to the White House to witness the signing of a major bill designed to help the disabled. And in April, Premo, an alumna of Golden West College in Huntington Beach, was honored in ceremonies at Kansas City as one of the nation’s most outstanding community college alumni by the American Assn. of Community and Junior Colleges.

Her appointment to the Department of Rehabilitation had long been predicted by political insiders. The department provides funds for programs serving the disabled in California.