Noah Davis, 16, looks forward every year to the Western North Carolina Braille Challenge, a skills competition for visually impaired students.

Noah was one of three Cabarrus County students who participated in the March 10 Braille Challenge at Camp Dogwood, a North Carolina Lions retreat in Catawba County for the blind and visually impaired. The others were J.N. Fries STEM Magnet seventh-grader Hope Bovard and Jacob Chamness, a first-grader at Harrisburg Elementary.

As of March 24, the three students were waiting to find out if their scores from the Western N.C. regional event were good enough to qualify each of them for the national competition.

It will be held in June in Los Angeles, location of The National Braille Institute, which sponsors and governs the National Braille Challenge. It is a highly competitive contest, and no Cabarrus County student has ever qualified for nationals.

Noah, Hope and Jacob are the only Braille reading students in Cabarrus County schools, according to Terri Bunn, the district’s teacher for the visually impaired and modified textbook coordinator.

All three are mainstreamed into their classes at their respective schools and receive services through the school system. They perform well academically, which, for Noah and Hope, is supported by their enrollment in STEM programs.

Twenty-four students in western North Carolina participated in regional competition. The competition is divided into age groups. Each group is scored in four areas of reading Braille.

For middle and high school students, the competition includes tests in speed and accuracy, charts and graphs, proofreading and reading comprehension. The elementary level competition replaces the charts and graphs section with spelling.

All four sections are timed. Students read through as much content as possible in the 20 minutes allowed and aim to answer questions accurately.

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