Personal Best

What parent wouldn’t want a teen like Wendy Welt? Responsible, loving, happy in her own skin--nothing like those overwrought kids on “Dawson’s Creek.”

At 19, she has doting pals and a boyfriend, a job she likes, a cool mom and dad who trust her, good looks.

What she does lack are arms and legs--which she was born without--but that’s barely braked her full-throttle charge at life.

Picture Wendy at the helm of a power boat, dark hair whipping her face. Wendy on a dance floor, clubbing with her brothers and friends, threatening to enter a strip contest. Wendy laughing as she zooms down the pool slide in the family’s backyard--a big brother behind her, one of the girls she baby-sits in front.

“I’m butt-heavy,” she said with a grin, referring to her 3-foot, 90-pound torso. “I make them go faster.”

As the newest and youngest member of the L.A. County Commission on Disabilities, Welt is proving to be a jolt of gusto and an inspiration, according to board members and citizens.

“I really believe--and this may sound hokey--but her presence there every month at the meetings, just the fact that she gets there, is helpful as an example,” said Michael Castillo, staff director of the commission. “Having gotten to know her now, I have this or that problem and I ask myself, ‘Would I sit on my front porch and be ticked off every day, or would I be like Wendy Welt?’ Just getting out of bed every day, that’s the impressive part.”

Commissioner Robert Abell, owner of an auction company, agreed. “She has a presence,” he said. “We need this young girl to move through the ranks so young people will have someone to come and talk to who will understand them. She’s going to be somebody someday.”

Hoping to demonstrate that those without limbs should not be limited, Welt took the commissioner post in March after a teacher told her about it. The commission advises the Board of Supervisors on compliance with the American Disabilities Act and takes up issues like access or a lack of it for the physically and mentally challenged.

She is on a committee studying how to prevent continued abuse of handicapped parking spaces--she personally feels the criteria are too loose--and ways to simplify using a county-contracted busing service. Currently, a rider must be periodically re-approved. (“I had to go into this place and point out, ‘My arms and legs aren’t going to grow back soon,’ so I could get an unconditional permit!”)

As someone considering a career in social work, teaching or counseling, Welt thinks the commission offers an oasis to which challenged people can help and relate to one another.

Turning her agenda pages with her tongue, she appears at ease in the public arena, but Welt has suffered her share of private frustrations: well-meaning but overprotective teachers, the everyday hassle of getting around on public transportation and, on the social side: bad-taste jokes and the more common stare.

Not that she dwells on this stuff. Long ago, she explained, she learned to either counter such rudeness with a smile, remark about it if it persisted or ignore it.

At a neighborhood lunch spot in Downey recently, a few children gaze curiously as she neatly eats a turkey sandwich and chips without utensil or mess.

She is telling the nightclub story to her parents seated across from her, explaining that she would be blazing a new frontier were she to have actually entered the strip-to-your-undies show. The motive? A $200 prize, which could go toward the $30,000 van that would enable her to drive for the first time.

“But I think the strip thing would probably ruin your budding political career,” Ron Welt observed dryly.

A story Welt tells from his daughter’s days in kindergarten is revealing: Ron and June Welt arrived at Wendy’s classroom for conference night and received a backhanded compliment. Wendy’s teacher said that the first two weeks left her thinking that Wendy’s parents were cruel and crazy for placing their daughter in public school. But one episode changed the way she would teach kindergarten.

“One day they couldn’t find Wendy, and a student teacher finally opened a closet and there she was,” Ron Welt said. “And the assistant says, ‘What are you doing in here?’ And Wendy says, ‘I’m hanging up my coat.’ And the assistant says, ‘Let me help you.’ And Wendy looks at her curiously and says: ‘Help me with what?’

“After that, the teacher said, they would never assume a kindergartner was helpless again. And Wendy has never been raised to think that way.”

Her Self-Confidence Sparks Interest

To be direct--Wendy usually is--it is riveting the first time you watch Wendy Welt swiftly move into a room, her stumps pumping forward like legs. It’s impolite to stare, but it’s hard to resist. Her ease invites questions and interest. Shake hands? No, can’t do that. Pat her on the back? Possibly condescending, or too familiar. When the questions do come, what word is preferred? Disabled? Handicapped? Challenged?

“I prefer just saying how it is-- no arms, no legs,” Wendy offers, having been lifted by her mother onto a sofa in the family’s living room. She scratches her nose with her left arm, which extends a few inches from her white tank shirt and plaid overall shorts.

“I don’t really like the word disabled, because it sounds like you’re turning off the battery of a robot. But there are more important things to worry about in life.”

The mantel is covered with baby photographs; Wendy is flanked by those of her older brothers, Ron and Bob. She was born without limbs in what is thought to be a nongenetic birth defect, and the well-meaning doctor assured her parents that there were institutions for children like Wendy.

Few resources were around then. The Welts went to UCLA, where Wendy worked with developmental therapists.

Over the years, Wendy has not missed many teen rites of passage. When she misbehaved as a kid, she was punished as strictly as her brothers. And supported. She was in drama from eighth grade on, went to her school’s dances--and danced. She earned money baby-sitting. And she dated.

When she came home from school puzzled and upset because a classmate told her she was handicapped, her parents said, “You aren’t handicapped, Wendy. You don’t have arms and legs.”

Thus, she learned to walk and feed herself and write with beautiful penmanship. She found prosthetic limbs uncomfortable and rejected them at a young age. Now, except for some help with food preparation and toiletries, she is independent.

Besides college, she works weekdays answering phones at the Downey Family YMCA, where she has been honored for her outstanding customer service.

Kent Halbmaier, director of special education for the Downey Unified School District, said Welt has been fearless since he met her as a 3- or 4-year-old and she attended district programs for nonstudents. He has followed her progress over the years.

Of her public speaking in classrooms, Halbmaier said: “She does an outstanding job of helping students and teachers develop a level of sensitivity. She certainly serves as a role model for special-ed students and regular students.”

She’s Not Concerned About Others’ Opinions

Her trust in others and her lack of self-consciousness are her greatest hallmarks.

“She isn’t afraid of what people think about her,” said one of her biggest fans, Stephanie Erickson, 15, for whom Wendy baby-sat for more than a decade. “She doesn’t have a problem with her disability either. There are certain things she can’t do, but only a couple. She has more confidence in herself than most other normal people do.”

To see Wendy Welt work a cell phone, apply makeup, paint ceramics or take photographs is impressive and humbling.

“Smile,” she said late one night, picking up a camera with her lips and maneuvering it between her shoulder and cheek, about to snap a picture.

“I do mostly verticals!” she said, throwing her head back laughing.

Seated beside her is boyfriend Mark Awit, 19, a music major at Long Beach City College and member of a local symphony. The couple met on campus in February as he stood behind her in line. They spent the lunch hour talking, and their friendship quickly bloomed. They finish each other’s sentences as they sit cuddling.

She intends to have children when she is older, and while it is early for such plans, he has no doubt she would pull off motherhood.

“With Wendy,” he said smiling, “you feel anything is possible.”

Nancy Wride can be reached by e-mail at Nancy.Wride@latimes.com.