Kaleigh Brendle, who was born with a rare eye disease, will represent New Jersey again at a grueling braille contest in Los Angeles. Watch video
FREEHOLD -- At the age of 13, Kaleigh Brendle has sang at the White House and shaken hands with Gov. Chris Christie.
And on Saturday, the Barkalow Middle School student will compete for the sixth time as a national finalist at the Braille Challenge, an academic competition that compares itself to a spelling bee for visually impaired youth to encourage use of the tactile writing.
"You go right to testing," Kaleigh said of the event in Los Angeles. "You go bam, bam, bam, bam, bam for hours. You don't get any breaks."
The top-10 contestants in each category, a total of 50 students, will test their skills in braille reading comprehension, proofreading, speed and accuracy, among other things, at the upcoming 16th annual competition put on by the Braille Institute.
More than 1,100 students from 41 states, not including the District of Columbia, and two Canadian provinces participated in the preliminary rounds this year, said Sergio Oliva, the institute's director of national programs. He said in Kaleigh's category, junior varsity, 215 students tried out.
Placing in the top four spots each year, Kaleigh hopes to partake in the event until she graduates from high school.
"People know her name," Olivia said of Kaleigh. "She's really the cream of the crop in terms of being a braille reader."
When asked if the challenge is competitive, Kaleigh and her mother Heather, 46, raised their voices, trying to speak over one another. The short answer: Yes, and it's grueling.
Kaleigh, who was born with Leber Congenital Amaurosis, a disease that comes with a serious loss of vision, has been recognized by local and state organizations for her successes in singing and academics. Soon, she will add another description to the list: Eighth grader.
"It's a big title," she said, chuckling in her family's kitchen.
Her 17-year-old brother Cody, who attends Colts Neck High School, was also born with the rare eye disorder, leaving him completely blind.
But that doesn't stop them, said Heather, whose family has lived at their home in Freehold for 14 years. Their father Jim, 53, works as a vice president for Bed Bath & Beyond.
On top of her expertise in understanding braille, which she has been reading for about 10 years, Kaleigh has synesthesia, meaning she sees a specific color for every musical note. She often associates the colors yellow, green and purple with Adele's music, which she is a huge fan of.
"There's automatically a color attached to a sound in my head," she said. "It's almost as if when you hear a person's name, you think of their face."
She's also pitch perfect, which means she can mimic music, identify chords and sing along in the right tone to any song, she said. She often corrects people who tune their family piano, her mother said.
As a singer, she performs with the children's Westminster Choir at Princeton University. She has sung at the White House and at a town hall meeting in Belmar as a part of Hurricane Sandy relief, where she met the governor.
Kaleigh, who has never gotten a "B" letter grade in school, also "debates like a lawyer," her mother said. She couldn't participate in tournaments at first though, because "they thought there were more notes on the braille pages than allowed."
"You're only allowed to have one page of print notes," Kaleigh said. "In truth, one page in about 12 font is about four braille pages."
Her debate coach fought for her to compete, Heather said, and she's contended in five tournaments since.
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Kaleigh, who wants to attend Princeton or Harvard University, aspires to become an author someday, looking up to the works of J. K. Rowling. She has already written "a couple little books, but they're not of the best quality," she said.
"Awe," her mother responded to her daughter's remarks, as their 4-year-old dog Biscuit barked in the background.
"Well, I wrote [the first one] when I was 9," said Kaleigh, who is now working on a novel about a mythology she created, something similar to "Percy Jackson & the Olympians" series.
"Any fortune I make, with hopefully success from writing, I'd want to donate to an organization that helps visually-impaired people," she said. "I want to serve as a role model to them, to show them despite their condition, there is no stopping them."
Luke Nozicka may be reached at lnozicka@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @lukenozicka. Find NJ.com on Facebook and Twitter.