To all – we had a very good gathering of alumni, spouses and children – 34 in all – at the Beehive Chapter of GUAA barbecue and annual alumni meeting at the Sanderson Community Center on August 17, 2013.  We had 20 alumni present to vote for new officers and the updated bylaws.

We are happy to announce that Pamela Mower is the new Beehive Chapter of GUAA president, and that Duane Kinner will assume the treasurer duties, both for the next three years.

Three officers remain on the board: Brooke Grossinger, vice president; Valerie Kinney, secretary, and Yvonne Montalette, liaison.  All terms expire 2016, the same year as GUAA elections.

The updates to bylaws were voted on by the alumni.

President’s Corner

Football fans, you are invited! Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah will now have captions to help people follow the game.  Announcements, officials’ calls and videos will all have real-time captions. We can now feel that we’re part of the action! Read the U’s announcement of this at http://

utahutes.cstv.com/genrel/082813aaa.html.

This past weekend, the UAD board and our partners had wonderful retreat session at the Deaf Center. We worked together to understand better: bylaws, parliamentary procedure, one year plans, and the new UAD website. We are excited to work together as a team for the next two years.

We are enthusiastic to announce the 8th ASL Films coming to our town. It will be on Friday, September 20 and Saturday, September 21 at Sanderson Community Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. This will take place during the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Festival, so be sure to come to both! Please check the advertisement on page 6 for more information.  You can click new UAD website to order the tickets.

We are proud to announce that the new UAD website is up and running. This website is not 100% complete, as it is a work in progress.  You are more than welcome to give me feedback. My email address is pmontalette@mac.com

Philippe Montalette
President

Obituaries

August 11, 2013 – Elmore Collard, 79, passed away peacefully. He was born in Colorado.  Elmore married  Connie Mae Garbini and together they shared 44 years of marriage. Elmore was a talented artist through his love of woodworking.  Funeral services and interment were held in Sandy.

August 19, 2013 – Ronald Barker, 65, passed away.  He was an avid bowler and was deeply involved with the deaf community.  He worked at the Defense Depot of Ogden as an auto body mechanic for over 20 years, then transferred to Hill AFB until his retirement where he then went back to work as a contractor for Hill.  A memorial service was held in North Ogden.

August 24, 2013 – Russell Workman, 71, passed away. He spent countless hours on his telescope teaching his nieces and nephews about the stars. In addition to astrology, his passions included Jazz basketball, board games, internet card games, research through books and the Internet. On hunts, he was able to spot elk and deer that others couldn’t.  A graveside service was held in West Valley City. .

August 26, 2013 – LaVell Olson, 77, passed away at home, surrounded by his family. .LaVell enjoyed watching sports, cooking for friends and family, fishing, hunting, camping, and traveling with Sharon and their friends to beautiful sceneries in their trailer.  Funeral services were held in St. George, with internment in Hurrcane.  He is survived by his wife, Sharon Kay Olson.

Hero’s Journey Benefit

Kimberly Thornsberry

There was Hero’s Journey Benefit hosted by Higher Grounds (where my daughter Stormi worked at this summer in Sun Valley, Idaho). Stormi met with Condoleezza Rice there. Neat!

Stormi just finished her summer job as a camp counselor for children with special needs last Friday. She is back in Boise starting her new job as a program assistant for dorm at Boise State today. She is a sophomore. 🙂

Enjoy the picture!  Stormi is on the right with red hair.  Can’t miss!

September 2013 Holidays

• 2    Labor Day
• 11  9/11 Remembrance
• 13  Yom Kippur 
• 21  International Peace Day

Jean Massieu School News

Michelle Tanner

School is in full swing!  There has been a smooth start to the new school year.  Students are excited to be around one another on a daily basis again.  They eagerly greeted their new teachers and began their new school year.  We are excited to see all of the old and new faces.

Teachers have been spending time establishing the expectations and procedures for their classrooms.

The extra-curricular activities have begun once again.  Those involved in drama have already begun their practices.  These students are already preparing for a Shakespeare competition in October.  And, we have enough girls to have a volleyball team!  We are excited to continue to be able to provide these kinds of opportunities for our students.  We hope you will be able to watch some of the games.

Also, please reserve October 11^th on your calendar for the annual JMS Fall Festival at the Deaf Center.

We are still seeking more substitute teachers.  If you are interested in becoming a substitute teacher at JMS, please apply at http://statejobspostings.utah.gov/.  We need you!

Your support is always appreciated and we hope you will take the time visit or volunteer at JMS.  This is a Deaf Community school!

Deaf Parent Infant Program

Paula Pittman

We have had a busy summer in PIP!  Even though families and staff tend to take summer vacations, and we do not do toddler groups through the summer, we have continued home visits through this hot summer.   Our PIP staff was fortunate enough to attend the Western Regional Early Intervention Conference in Jacksonville, WY in June.  We learned so much and had a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with early interventionists from our neighboring Western states.

We hired a new ASL/English Orientation Specialist and finished her training only to have her quit two days after training to take a job out of state.  This has been very difficult for us, leaving us without an ASL/English specialist for several months now.  So we will be advertising for a new ASL/English specialist and will hopefully get someone in that position soon.

We welcomed April Trocki onto our Deaf Mentor team this summer as well.  April worked with USDB as a Deaf Mentor several years ago, and we are thrilled to have her back on our team!  We now have 5 Deaf Mentors and we are happily serving 42 families in the Deaf Mentor Program right now.

We also hired a new Parent Advisor this summer, so we are happy to have Kimberly Geurts on our staff.  Kim will be serving East Salt Lake City and Summit County.  We have not had a provider to serve this area for several years, so we are very excited to have her on our team.

We had a wonderful year in PIP this past year, serving a total of 378 children with varied hearing abilities and their families throughout the year.  We were also thrilled to finally get the data tracking system from the Health Department, known as BTOTS (Baby and Toddler Online Tracking System), up and running.  For our staff that means that they can now do their lesson plans on their iPads in family’s homes and can enter any information about the child’s hearing ability or language/communication skills directly into this online tracking system.  This has made our jobs easier and more complex, all at the same time.  We also saw the end of two research projects that Utah State University designed, the tele-intervention study and a survey to determine more about the use of hearing aids with babies age three and younger.  We look forward to implementing any new information that comes from these studies into our program.

In the school year ahead we hope to improve our orientation process by giving families the opportunity to hear the life stories 4-6 adults or teens who are deaf or hard of hearing, all with different educational backgrounds and varied communication preferences.  We hope to do this by adding video clips to our website so families can “meet” individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing online, no matter where the family lives.

We also plan to do a pilot program for a small group of children that will be called “Listening Time”.  This will be a time when children have fun listening to new sounds and words with the help of the child’s parent and a listening specialist.  This pilot program will be available to children who are using amplification successfully, regardless of what language or communication modality that they are using.

We will be planning a parent retreat in conjunction with the Blind PIP Program and we are going to bring back the PIP Family Camp that our families always enjoyed so much.  We haven’t had PIP Family Camp in four years, so we are all thrilled to bring that activity back as a yearly event in Deaf PIP.

We are excited about this new Year and look forward to doing our best to meet the needs of every child aged birth to three who is deaf or hard of hearing and their family.

**Another family fun event**

SLCAD’S Remembering Penny: Cycling Heroes Against Abuse is coming up!

When? 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Time? 8am-1pm

Where? Foxboro Regional Park!

How do I register?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cyclingheroes2013

What to expect?

*Dress up as your FAVORITE SUPERHERO!

*Children’s Activities!

*Entertainment!

*Lunch is included in registration!

*Bike rides along the scenic Legacy Trail

*5k run/walk

PRIZES!

Questions? Ask Ayas! Ayas@slcad.org

Thanks to Sorenson Communications for sponsoring this bike event! 

Let’s keep working together to keep our community safe!