"The WarPats"

The Parkville home of Jim and Beth Kelly is an unlikely spot for a concert. Their living room barely has enough room for one keyboard, let alone two, plus a Karaoke machine. But for Warren Logan and Patrick Kelly it was perfect. The boys had a live audience and they were having a ball telling jokes and performing songs they made up.

The seven- and eight-year-old boys are close friends, with a lot in common. They attend the same school, they both like pizza and burgers and they love music. Warren and Patrick also have something else in common -- both boys have been blind since birth and are adapting to a world where most people can see.

Warren and Patrick first met as toddlers when their parents enrolled them at Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired (CCVI). Neither family had ever heard of CCVI before discovering they had a child who couldn’t see. The Kelly’s found CCVI by looking in the yellow pages of the phone book under "blind." Doctors directed Eric and Liz Logan to CCVI. It was only natural that the boys became friends. They rode the bus to and from school every day, making up songs and telling jokes along the way. CCVI teachers encouraged their musical interest, feeling it helped the boys express themselves and get over "being shy."

A year ago their musical interest intensified when Patrick’s physical therapist gave him a keyboard. Of course, Warren wanted one too. He got a keyboard and the boys started practicing together. When they couldn’t do it in person, they did it over the telephone or by recording songs on audio cassettes, then exchanging them the next day at school. Their parents didn’t mind the busy phone lines; they were happy to see the boys becoming such good friends. Beth Kelly called the frequent busy signals "a small price to pay watching Patrick building a friendship and getting a chance to act like a kid."

The boys began spending a lot of time at each other’s house. They soon discovered other shared interests besides music. They both loved playing video games, even though they couldn’t see. Patrick is good enough to make it all the way to the end of Wrestle Mania, by reacting to the play-by-play description of his opponent’s moves. Warren’s dad is the ring-side announcer.

But for the Parkville duo, music is still "where it’s at." They formed a band last year called the "WarPats" (Get it? Warren and Patrick combined). They started with their version of "heavy metal" music but decided they prefer rap. Meanwhile, both boys graduated from CCVI and are now mainstreamed into the regular second grade classroom at Chinn Elementary School in Parkville. Warren and Patrick both made the honor roll last year as first graders.

CCVI is inviting the "WarPats" to perform at the school’s last ice cream social before CCVI moves into its new home in the Children’s Center Campus in January. It gives the boys a goal, something special to work towards…which is great. It was fun to watch them practice at the Kelly’s house, where the only thing bigger than their grins....were the smiles on their parents’ faces.