Opening Session

By Cheryl Heppner

The opening session of Hearing Loss Association of America's 21st annual convention took place at 5 pm in the Coronado Ballroom at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort. Terry D. Portis, Ed.D., Executive Director of HLAA, welcomed us by pulling our collective legs with a fictitious tale that Board President Dick Meyer was still recovering from arm wrestling with Lou Ferrigno. Terry then recognized members of the Board of Directors and Dick -- whose arm had made an incredibly speedy recovery -- welcomed us on behalf of the Board and delegates. Alan Brown and Lynn Rousseau gave their welcomes on behalf of the Florida Host Committee.

During the welcoming presentations, we learned that Lou Ferrigno, our keynote speaker, was not just television's Incredible Hulk but a star in the 1977 movie "Pumping Iron", where he is seen alongside California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Joe Gold, who founded Gold's Gym. Lou is recognized as one of the pioneers of men's bodybuilding. The first time that Lou was mentioned during the opening session, his name was spelled "Lou Forerig" in the CART on the big screen. Computer dictionary with a sense of humor? That mistake was made only once.

We also learned about some of HLAA's accomplishments during the past year. More than 1,000 people walked to raise funds for HLAA in the Walk4Hearing. HLAA's American Academy of Hearing Loss Specialists has now had over 100 students. Advocacy programs are, and will continue to be, the cornerstone of HLAA. The website had over 5 million hits during the month of April. With the number of people who have hearing loss rising from 28 million to 31 million, these trends will continue.

The most moving moment during the opening ceremony occurred when we were informed that among those in the audience was Tom Wiggins, an Army Ranger who had been wounded in Afghanistan. Tom, who had come from Oregon to attend the conference, was given a standing ovation.

National Access Award The National Access Award is given by HLAA to those who have provided or improved communication access in a significant way for people with hearing loss. Their work contributes to furthering attitudinal changes and improving the quality of life for all people who are hard of hearing. This year's award was presented to Mark J. Golden, head of the National Court Reporters Association (NCRA), by Terry Portis. NCRA was recognized for its leadership in promoting high quality captioning and CART services and its successful advocacy for federal fnding to train more reporters in captioning and CART. Golden, whose organization has nearly 25,000 members, said that the captioning and CART providers like to feel that they are making a difference in someone's life.

Sponsors Tell a Partnership Tale Terry Portis recognized Cochlear Americas and Walt Disney Parks & Resort for their sponsorship of the Opening Session. Donna Sorkin, Vice President of Consumer Affairs at Cochlear America and Greg Hale, Chief Safety Officer and Vice President of Safety Accessibility and Advanced Technology at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts had a back and forth dialogue about the long and fruitful partnership between HLAA and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.

Ten years ago, when Donna headed HLAA, the organization had its first convention at Disney World. Prior to the convention, HLAA representatives visited Disney World to check for access and couldn't find the appropriate person to give feedback to. One cast member handed them a card that was for the head of legal services at Walt Disney World.

Greg was told "you've got to talk to this lady" and ended up having a wonderful conversation with Donna. As a result, he realized that Disney World needed to concentrate more on training its staff. Disney sent an access engineer to HLAA's Dallas convention.

Preparing for that first convention was a challenge. Disney had tens of thousands of cast members to train. At the same time it was rolling out new technology: assistive listening systems, sign language interpreters, and television captions at the click of a button. Donna said she realized from that experience how many things could go wrong. HLAA helped Disney develop its educational materials.

Donna called the period "an exciting time" because HLAA was working with the largest entertainment complex in the world. Volunteers went in with clipboards and gave their input to Disney. Greg said that the main desire was a way to make moving rides accessible through captioning. Disney eventually invented the technology to do it and rolled it out at 39 attractions. Now they call the device they've been using "the red brick" and are working on a small, light hand-held unit that incorporates the receiver for the listening systems and the TV captioning device. It will be rolled out, both at Disney World and Disneyland, as soon as the bugs are worked out.

Cochlear's Goal The most stunning moment of the opening ceremony came when Donna Sorkin introduced her boss, President of Cochlear Americas Chris Smith. As Donna left the podium and Chris took her place, we saw just how far apart they are in height. Chris towered over the microphone that Donna had been using. But there's more to this stunning business. Chris announced that Cochlear will participate in the 2007 Walk4Hearing, and challenged HLAA to go from 6 walks to 250.

The Incredible Lou Ferrigno Lou Ferrigno lost his hearing as a child from meningitis. The HLAA convention program book says that at the age of 20, he was the youngest bodybuilder ever to hold the Mr. Universe title and the only one to win it two consecutive times. Bodybuilding became a way of life for Lou to compensate for his hearing loss. Lou was chosen to play the Hulk over other bodybuilders because no one could match his 6'5", 275+ pound physique.

Today Lou still looks very powerful. He continues to act in theater, and he recently became a deputy sheriff in L.A.

Lou told us that he had tough times during his childhood. He wore a hearing aid strapped to his chest, and other children called him "Deaf Louie". His father rejected him. Lou went to school and to the New York League for the Hard of Hearing, but he found lipreading very frustrating and did not have many friends.

One of the few things Lou enjoyed was watching action movies. He was always searching for a way to find something that would make him feel good about himself. He liked that superheroes had power. Then one day he discovered a body building magazine called Muscle Power. This led him to learn how to get himself built up, and he began to lose his anger.

As Lou tells it, "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." He explained that he had a broken little kid inside him, and had to take care of the kid to survive.

Lou was at his most engaging when responding to questions from the audience. He said that he still wears a hearing aid and hasn't yet seriously considered getting a cochlear implant. At one time he tried to convince people he had a speech problem instead of a hearing problem. This backfired on him; people thought he was ignorant, on drugs, etc.

One of the audience asked why he doesn't wear his hearing aids when he works out. Lou said that is concerned about perspiration damaging his small in the ear hearing aids and that he also likes to stay very focused when he is working out.

Lou once trained a woman who weighed over 200 pounds. The woman told him that she watched what she ate and never lost weight. One day Lou came upon her inside her car, and she had a box of Dunkin Donuts. When the car door opened, some of the donuts went rolling down the street. Lou asked her about the donuts. The woman said she ate four meals a day, and between meals she had a donut. Then Lou saw another box of cinnamon buns and asked her about that. The woman said she had those while watching TV. Altogether she was eating four donuts and two cinnamon buns a day. Lou talked to her about it, and the woman confessed that she was afraid to lose weight.

Another favorite story was about how Lou met his wife. She was a manager who kicked him out of the place. He didn't have his ID -- although all the friends accompanying him had theirs -- and she didn't know who he was. When he came back another time, she was drawn to him. He says his need to lipread was an asset; she thought he was really interested in her because he watched her face so intently.

Lou believes that everyone on the planet has some kind of disability. He likes to compete with himself every day. He looks in the mirror and feels that he is still 20 years old.

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