Seeing Beyond the Immediate : Challenge: Saddleback College radio host Doug Wells is determined not to let a degenerative eye disease discourage him from becoming a professional disc jockey.

MISSION VIEJO —  It’s 3 p.m. on Tuesday, time for the weekly “Club Doug” show on Saddleback College’s student-run public radio station.

“This is KSBR, 88.5 on the FM dial. Let’s get the afternoon rolling, and if there’s something you want to hear, give me a call,” says the program’s host, Doug Wells, settling down for his three-hour shift.

Throughout his jazz show, Wells, 30, moves at a frenetic pace, alternating between introducing songs and delivering public-service announcements and ad-libbing to his listeners.

The Mission Viejo man performs his duties with such aplomb, anyone listening would never know that he is blind.

“I don’t tell the audience,” Wells said. “I don’t see any reason for it.”

Three years ago, Wells was a professional landscaper simultaneously pursuing a dream of working in the music business. After a long day at work, he often would travel to Los Angeles with local bands to work as a sound man at concerts.

“I thought I’d eventually work in the music business full time and be involved in recording or sound-mixing in some way,” he said. “I really enjoyed working the gigs.”

But three years ago, it was discovered he had Leber’s optic neuropathy, a degenerative hereditary eye disease that robbed him of all but his peripheral vision. Doctors have told him his vision may become better or worse over time, but Wells said his condition seems to have stabilized at this point.

“It’s a whole new thing when you have to start getting around without your eyesight,” Wells said. “It changes everything.”

Wells had to give up his landscaping job and, as a result, sell his truck and move from the three-bedroom house he was renting to a one-bedroom apartment near the campus.

But he refused to give up on his dreams.

“Right away, I started calling around trying to find out how I could find a job,” he said. “I went to the Braille Institute in Anaheim and learned to type, how to read Braille as well as living skills and how to get around. I was always an independent person, and I wanted to stay that way.”

Wells then returned to Saddleback College, where he had taken classes shortly after graduating from Laguna Hills High School, and enrolled in broadcasting and physical-education courses.

After completing some introductory broadcasting courses, Wells told station producers that he wanted to be a disc jockey. The hitch was that he would need a partner to help him select the music, feed him his cues and coach him on the public-service announcements that he must deliver from memory.

That help came from fellow student Greg Andrews, 38, who volunteered “to basically be my eyes and my helper” during the program, Wells said. “It would be impossible to do this by myself.”

Said Andrews: “No one would ever guess that he’s not reading the material because he really is a perfectionist. He has a good attitude, a good style to his voice and wants it to be absolutely perfect every time.”

The partnership has extended outside the radio station. Andrews suffers from multiple sclerosis and was in a wheelchair until a few months ago. He now gets around with a cane. Andrews credits much of his improvement to the athletic Wells, who, through his job as a student aide in the college adaptive physical education department, has helped Andrews embark on a physical fitness program that includes lifting weights. In addition to his job as an aide, Wells also receives Social Security and state disability payments.

Wells said he plans to continue honing his radio skills and that he hopes eventually to land a paying job in broadcasting. He has no illusions about his chances, saying, “I’m going to have to really do a good job of selling myself.”

But he is determined to give it a try.

“The neat thing is that when something like this happens to you, you learn to appreciate what you’ve got,” he said. “You have to go with what you’re given.”