Lucinda Bihari breaks barriers with appointment to Tuscarawas DD board
by Jon Baker, Reporter - The Times Reporter | Thu, Dec 1st, 2022
NEW PHILADELPHIA ‒ Lucinda Bihari has gone from an orphanage in west Africa to being a trailblazer in Tuscarawas County. The New Philadelphia resident is the first person with developmental disabilities to be appointed to the Tuscarawas County Board of Developmental Disabilities. Commissioners made the appointment earlier this month.
"I'm excited and kind of nervous about it at the same time, but I'm definitely excited about it," Bihari said. She agreed to join the board because it will give her the chance to meet new people and have her voice be heard.
Her mother Rita Bihari is happy that she will have the opportunity. "It's important to her to feel like she's giving back to the community, and this is a way that she can feel like she's doing that," she said.
Who is Lucinda Bihari?
Bihari, 25, was born in Sierra Leone and spent eight years of her life in an orphanage in the capital, Freetown.
"In the orphanage, we always had to be for ourselves and work for ourselves," she recalled. "I didn't know how to cook, but they always wanted me to be in the kitchen. But I never really wanted to be in the kitchen."
Photo Credit: Andrew Dolph/The Times Reporter
by Jon Baker, Reporter - The Times Reporter Thu, Dec 1st, 2022