His dad, James T. Case Jr., the former long-time president of the Delaware Standardbred Owners Association (DSOA). Ty works mornings with his horses and three nights a week, a span of 24 hours weekly, as a switchboard operator at Dover Air Force Base.

Since age five, Case has been around horses, cooling out and hotwalking horses in his youth, training and driving horses for his dad at Brandywine, Liberty Bell, Dover Downs, Harrington and Ocean Downs until he lost his sight due to diabetes in 1993.

A successful kidney-pancreas transplant enabled Case to regain his sight for two years before effects from diabetes rendered him sightless again in 1995.

Case also underwent quadruple bypass surgery on his heart. Case, now in his early 50s, resides in Camden, Del., a suburb of Dover, the state capital, has been a switchboard operation at the Dover base where he also has taught other blind employees to use the equipment.

Case is the first totally blind operation selected to work at the Dover Air Base.

Case helped to perfect the operation's switchboard technoligy and train several other blind employees to use it.

From 6,000 blind workers, Ty Case was named National Blind Worker of the Year by the National Association for Employment of People Who Are Blind and received a $1,000 award and a large plaque at the association's annual meeting in New Orleans.

Marv Bachrad