Junior Spokesperson Lights the Way

We’ve been keeping up with our energetic and dedicated friend from Kansas, Eva Woolwine.

As reported in our Summer 2005 Newsletter, she was off to the Miss Kansas pageant (June 5 – 12) to compete with stuttering awareness and education as her platform. As a person who stutters herself since early childhood, Eva is passionate about clearing up misconceptions regarding stuttering.

While Eva didn’t win Miss Kansas, she came away a winner nonetheless. As the youngest contestant, she won Newcomer of the Year and Most Inspirational Contestant. Additionally, her platform was rated among the top five!

“This exposure has been such a wonderful opportunity to continue my mission to educate the general public about stuttering,” Eva stressed. “People who stutter are as intelligent and well adjusted as non-stutterers. We are every bit as capable of contributing and succeeding.”

Her enthusiasm earned her a guest spot at The National Association of Young People Who Stutter Friends Convention in Cleveland (July 28-30).

Lee Caggiano, director, said of this years’ program, “We were delighted to have Eva join us at this year’s convention. She served as a wonderful role model for many of the young people attending Friends. Eva showed us all that stuttering does not have to prevent us from reaching our goals and fulfilling our dreams. We were happy to welcome Eva and look forward to having her join us again next year.”

Eva values opportunities such as speaking before the Friends convention in Cleveland, the NSA convention in Chicago, and being highlighted in the Stuttering Foundation’s newsletters. They allow her to encourage young people like herself. “It’s important not to lose sight of the possibilities for improvement, success, and fulfillment. It takes work, but there is hope and help every day!” she declares.

In fact, the Stuttering Foundation has had numerous requests from youngsters, teens, and their friends and families this summer to receive copies of the Summer Newsletter.

“Eva’s success makes her a great role model for us all,” said Jane Fraser, president of SFA.

This fall, Eva intends to study Psychology at a local community college. She will be competing in Miss Kansas USA in November. She will also be working toward her dream, being the first Miss America who stutters, by competing in Miss Kansas preliminaries.

If Eva seems amiable and gracious about not winning Miss Kansas, responding with “I’ll try again next year!” It’s because that is the philosophy she applies to life in general. And that is what she would like to share with all of us: All efforts are victories. Keep trying and you will succeed!

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Winston Churchill

Seeking to "remove Winston Churchill's stutter by second guessing the diagnosis" indicates neither a truthful retelling of history nor an informed opinion about a complex speech disorder, say experts in the field of speech-language pathology.

Recent news reports that quote Dr. John Mather, a Washington physician, as saying that Churchill's stutter "is a lie" brought adamant critical response from specialists in the field of stuttering and fluency disorders.

Carly Simon

Carly Simon began stuttering severely when she was eight years old.

Bill Walton

From BillWalton.com

Thank you for your interest in my life long problem with my speech and communication skills. I was a very shy and reserved young man who could not speak at all without severely stuttering until I was 28 years old. Always a success in the classroom and on the basketball court, I took refuge in the things that I did well as a youngster. A straight A student, my athletic abilities covered the deficiencies that limited my overall growth and development. The game of basketball was my religion, the gym my church. It was a convenient way of avoiding my responsibilities of developing my human relation skills.

When I was 28, a chance encounter at a social event with Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Glickman completely changed my life in so many ways that things have never been the same since, nor have they ever been better. That day, in a very brief, private conversation (one way, mind you, since I literally could not speak at the time) Marty explained, patiently and concisely, that talking, communicating was a skill not a gift or a birthright and that like any skill, whether it be sports, music, business or whatever, needed to be developed over a lifetime of hard work, discipline, organization and practice. Marty gave me some simple tips that day and then encouraged me to take those keys and apply them to methods of learning that I had received from the special teachers that I had come across in my life, particularly the 6 Hall of Fame basketball coaches that I had played for throughout my career. The beginning of my whole new life was as simple as that. No gimmicks, tricks or shortcuts. Just the realization that with some help, guidance and a lot of hard work that I too could do what seemed so easy, simple and natural to everyone else, yet seemed impossibly out of my reach and comprehension.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.