Kenneth Jernigan was not fired. In fact, ten years later, because of the unparalleled success of the new Jernigan training model at the Iowa Commission for the Blind, he was presented with a citation from President Lyndon Johnson for his outstanding work. Because of the remarkable success of this new Iowa model, the presenter of the Lyndon Johnson accolade, Harold Russell of the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped, was moved to remark, "If a person must be blind, it is better to be blind in Iowa than in any other place in the nation, or the world!"