Won Fight to Attend School

Ryan White became a household name in 1985, when as a 14-year-old he began his successful fight to attend the public school in Kokomo that had banned him amid a clamor of fearful students and their parents. For months, he had been forced to get his seventh-grade class lessons through a telephone hook-up at home.

After he prevailed in court, the boy was taunted at school by other children who wrote obscenities on his locker and shouted insults as he passed in the halls. Vandals broke windows of the family's house and slashed their car's tires. When his mother, Jeanne White, went to the grocery store, cashiers would throw down her change to avoid touching her hands.

The family moved in 1987 to Cicero, a farming town about 20 miles from Kokomo and 40 miles north of Indianapolis. There he was generally accepted and treated as just another student at Hamilton Heights High School. He was halfway through his senior year when his health began failing, Wish 'to Be a Regular Kid'

The young man, who often said he only wanted to be treated like an ordinary teen-ager, had a date for the senior prom, and friends said he was looking forward to the dance.

''When he first came, a lot of people were really scared,'' said Brad Letsinger, a high school senior who was one of Mr. White's best friends. ''But Ryan helped all of us to understand. He didn't want people to feel sorry for him. He hated that. He just wanted to be a regular kid.''