CENTER TWP — October Lowe has been blind almost since birth.

But the Center Township woman hasn't let her disability deter her from her true passion in life.

When faced with the prospect of talking in front of a group some people tense up, develop sweaty palms or lose their speech, all responses Lowe can't understand.

“I love public speaking,” she said, from her cozy room at the Concordia at the Orchard assisted living facility. “I absolutely look forward to the second and fourth Saturday of the month.”

It's on those days that Lowe can gather with her colleagues at the Butler County Toastmasters Club.

Toastmasters is an international organization that helps members improve their speaking and leadership skills. The organization has clubs in 135 countries and more than 330,000 members.

Lowe was introduced to Toastmasters more than 30 years ago when a family friend took her to a meeting in South Florida.

Lowe was hooked.

“I thought, 'This is really neat,'” she recalled.

She moved here in 1997 and didn't have the money to pay the Toastmaster dues.

Lowe, 62, has never let her blindness define her. She also is a member of the Adoring Christ Through Song (ACTS) singing group, the Butler Writer's Guild and is secretary of the Blind Support Group.

It was through a friend she met in ACTS that Lowe was able to join the Butler group.

“She mentioned that she really enjoyed public speaking but couldn't afford (to join),” said Mary Kitchen of Butler. “It kind of touched my heart.”

Kitchen offered to sponsor Lowe's membership in Toastmasters.

Kitchen said Lowe fit right into the Butler group.

“She's very active, always ready to be involved in any way,” she said.

Lowe's advice to people afraid of public speaking is culled from personal experience.

“Just get up and put a big blindfold over your eyes and then, when you're done, take it off,” she said. “You can live in my world for a while.”

But Lowe's public speaking aspirations go beyond the Trustees Room at the Butler YMCA, the site of the Toastmasters meetings.

“I dream about going on The Learning Channel and teaching about Braille,” she said.

A wall of shelves in her room is filled with dark red and blue binders, books in Braille. Lowe pulls a down a large blue book and reads a Bible verse, her fingers skimming over the page.

“I've been reading Braille all my life,” she said. “I've never seen, so I don't know what it is to see.”

Lowe was born prematurely in 1953, and lost her sight while in the incubator at the hospital.

Named after what was to be her birth month and the one her mother found most beautiful, Lowe has never let her blindness hold her back.

“Blindness can be laughable,” Lowe said. “I'm able to laugh at myself.”

Lowe, who attended regular public schools, laughed as she recalled incidents over the years including mistaking bug spray for hairspray, shaving cream for perfume and evacuating a post office as a child when she pulled the fire alarm.

“I thought it was a mailbox,” she said. “It was in the newspaper, 'Blind girl evacuates post office.'”