Passion

I spent last weekend in Huntington, WV on the Marshall University campus. I serve on the Alexander Graham Bell Association Board of Directors. I was the founding president of this organization 4 years ago. Now I serve as Secretary and Board Member. I also will be serving on the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Advisory Board for WV We have 8 individuals on the AG Bell Board who are passionate about providing advocacy and resources for the adults and children of WV who have hearing loss. We are an organization that supports listening and spoken language as the communication option. I adore these 8 individuals. They push me to be more compassionate, empathetic, tenacious, and ever-seeking in wisdom. Although I have taken a step back from my career as a speech language pathologist, I will always have a "fire in my belly" for hearing loss. This passion started almost eleven years ago when I visited Marty in Memphis over Easter Break. I was finishing up my graduate work in Virginia and Marty was in his first year of Optometry School. We were engaged to be married that following July and I desperately needed a job lined up for when I moved to Memphis. I was going to be supporting Marty and I while he finished three more years of school. I picked Memphis Oral School out of the phone book and inquired about a job. How random! It turned out that they were hiring and wanted me to come in for an interview right away. I asked if they used sign language, because I wasn't that adept in sign at the time. Ms. Ward, the director, said "No, we are an Auditory Oral School and we use listening and spoken language. Over 50% of our students have cochlear implants. The remainder have digital aids. This equipment allows them to have access to spoken language. Most of our students are born to hearing parents so they want them to communicate with them in their language." I was intrigued but in no way prepared for the videotape she showed me in my interview. She showed me a video of a deaf baby unable to hear a sound, and then a second tape of this same child who was probably kindergarten age who was now mainstreamed with typical peers. In the tape he was singing, "Happy Birthday." I didn't know that was possible for deaf children. My mouth dropped open. I came back to Marty's apartment that night and said, "I want that job. I am going to do everything possible to get that job. That's where I want to work." Sure enough, I pestered them enough for a second interview. A few days after our honeymoon, I was working in my dream job. I still say, leaving that job was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. My boss used to tell me that I was having too much fun at my job, she felt bad paying me! At our end of the year picnic, I sat in my car and cried. I loved my job and I loved Memphis. I married a WV boy though who desperately wanted to raise a family near our family in the mountains of WV. Sometimes you have to sacrifice everything for love. I did vow though, that somehow I would bring the knowledge that I gained in TN back to WV. When I came back to WV I started working in the public schools as an itinerant SLP. I started working WV Birth to Three too so I could start working with deaf babies as soon as they were born. Fast forward a few years, and the Cochlear Implant Task Force was started. Then AG Bell began. Then I began to teach some graduate level distance learning classes with my friend and colleague Patricia. Somehow God has allowed me to find my niche in this state. Even when I took some time off to raise my children and be a stay-at-home mom I have remained active in AG Bell. I want my children to see me giving to something I feel passionate about. I can only pray that one day they feel the same passion about something as I do.