Jason Price is a programs manager for the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services who is celebrating 25 years with the agency.

Price grew up in Dover, the son of Brenda Price and the late Audie Price.

He was born prematurely, with cerebral palsy- based quadriplegia.

Life would be a struggle, he said, but growing up in Dover provided him with a foundation for a relentless work ethic.

“I had a ‘no excuse’ and ‘no sob story’ mentality,” Price said. “What I needed were weapons – the tools to level the playing field. With those intangibles, combined with an agency ready to help me figure out what tools I would need, success quickly became inevitable for me.”

That’s when he turned to DRS.

“I met my VR counselor, Sarah Tebow, in the late 1980s,” he said.

“Sarah equipped me with the wheelchairs I would need, specialized computer software and so on. But most importantly, she looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘You can accomplish anything.’

“From that point, it was off to the races for this kid,” he added.

As a DRS consumer, Price received the necessary tools for success coming up through college.

There was another driving force as well.

“I wouldn’t have made it without the example of work and effort provided by my dad,” Price said. “He expected the same of me, wheelchair or not.”

Audie Price spent nearly five decades in the oil and gas industry, which included the founding of Audie Price Inspection, Inc., which remains a successful enterprise to this day.

The elder Price passed away in May.

“I miss him greatly,” said his son.

When he was paving his own path aided by the tools instilled by his father and others provided by DRS, Price saw his own career come into focus.

“I quickly discovered I had significant talent in the written word and a knack for public speaking. With the help of DRS, not only was I able to successfully navigate a university despite coming from a town of 400 and a class of 17, but college newspapers led to an early career focused on sports reporting, including my hometown newspaper, the Kingfisher Times and Free Press.”

Price wrote for the KT&FP while still in high school and the summer after graduating in 1992.

“It’s hard to express my full gratitude to Gary Reid for giving me a shot as a kid,” Price said. “It was a taste of work that left me craving more. I don’t pass by the newspaper office without tipping my hat in appreciation to this day.”

After graduating from Dover, Price spent two years earning his associate’s degree in journalism at Redlands Community College.

He picked up his bachelor’s in journalism from Northeastern State University in 1997, then later his master’s in rehabilitation counseling from the University of North Texas in 2008.

Price began his career at DRS in September 1999 and worked in the agency’s media relations department until 2005.

Today in his role at DRS, Price leads a department helping put disabled Oklahomans back to work.

“My program is focused on those consumers who are so severely disabled they are receiving SSI or SSDI,” Price said. “These are the two cash benefit programs administered by the Social Security Administration. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is an entitlement for people who haven’t worked any significant amount. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is an insurance program that you qualify for based on your earnings in the workforce.

“Both require disability diagnosis so severe that you are declared unable to work.”

Price said his team of certified vocational rehabilitation counselors began in 2009 and since then has helped more than 3,000 Oklahomans.

“Those individuals traded in SSA benefit checks for quality, integrated, competitive, livable employment,” he said. “At the same time, we received more than $38 million in revenue coming back into the state for the cost of those case services.

“I am extremely proud of the program,” Price added. “We are creating taxpayers and starting them on a lifetime of quality employment. At the same time, we are saving funding for SSI/SSDI so these programs remain solvent longer, protecting benefits for Oklahomans with the most significant disabilities.”

A Cashion native, Mark Beutler is the director of communications for the the Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services.