2014 Utah Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Conference

By Courtney LaDue

Utah Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (UTRID) held our bi-annual state conference at the Sanderson Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on August 7-9, 2014. Our conference was well attended and interpreters were able to attend workshops on various interpreting related topics. In addition to learning, we also had some fun! Our banquet entertainment was provided by Keith Wann and Wink Smith. We feasted on a wonderful meal and then enjoyed their show. During the banquet, UTRID also recognized four individuals who have contributed to the Utah interpreting community. We accepted nominations from Utah interpreters and also from the Utah Deaf community. We presented the following awards:

Community Member of the Year: Philippe Montalette
Student of the Year: Kristy Mathisen
Interpreter of the Year: Dawn Duran
Kim Maibaum Lifetime Achievement Award: Beth Ann Campbell

Our UTRID business meeting was held Saturday, August 9. We would like to thank UAD for their generous support of UTRID as they sponsored our lunch. This helped encourage conference attendees to stay and participate in our elections and business meeting. UTRID members voted for our new board and the following positions were filled:

UTRID_NewBoardPresident: Melody Fico
Vice President: Michael Farner
Secretary: Cynthia Crawford
Treasurer: Michelle Draper
Members at Large: Colby Backman, Yvonne Montalette, Jamie Hardman, Stephanie Belshe, Jennifer Jackson, and Anita Nelson-Julander

For the past two years, I have had the privilege of serving as the UTRID President and I want to take a moment to say thank you to UAD for your support of UTRID during this time. It has been wonderful getting to know more about the Deaf community in Utah and being able to partner with organizations like UAD, Sego Lily and other local groups. Sego Lily and UTRID have hosted interpreter trainings together. UAD has graciously invited interpreters to attend UAD events and conferences. It has truly been a pleasure working together and I look forward to continuing to work together in the future!

President’s Corner

Don’t miss out on this movie by ASL Films!  “Beyond the Embers: Vol. 1” will be shown twice,  September 12 and 13.

To view the movie trailer, click https://vimeo.com/92960667.  It will first be shown at the Jean Massieu School for the Deaf (JMS) Auditorium in Salt Lake City, on Friday, September 12.  The showing begins at 8 pm. The second showing, on Saturday, September 13, will be at the Southern Utah Deaf & Hard of Hearing Programs (SUDHHP) Center at St. George.  This showing begins at 7 pm.  The flyers are on pages 12 and 13 of this issue.  You can purchase your tickets online.  Please share this information with your friends through Facebook and other social media.  Thank you for your support of UAD!

During the first August weekend, I attended the Utah Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (UTRID) bi-annual conference.  UTRID and UAD are partners.  I thank the outgoing UTRID board who were so willing to work with us.  UTRID honored me with an award, recognizing our contributions to the deaf community.

We encourage you to join UAD as a member and give your support to UAD; this strengthens the organization. UAD needs your voice and your opinion to help us move forward in the future.

Philippe Montalette
President, pmontalette@me.com

Rattles ‘n’ Powder

August 4, 2014 – Twin girls, Sara and Samantha, born to KC and Ale Loder; Ken and Julie Loder are grandparents, while Jim and Peg Harper are great grandparents for the 8th and 9th time.  All live in South Jordan.

Obituary

August 7, 2014 – Elsie Anderson passed away peacefully at the age of 92.  She was born and raised in Iona, Idaho.  It was at the Idaho School for the Deaf in Gooding, Idaho that Elsie met her sweetheart, Lawrence (Larry) Leland Anderson.  In 1946, they bought an acre of land in Holladay, Utah where they built their home little by little as their family grew.  Elsie lived in this home the rest of her life.  Larry passed away in 1986.  Elsie always found the good in everyone and made the best of the challenges that she had.  No matter what her struggle, if you asked how she was, she would smile as she said, “I’m fine.”  Elsie had a story or poem for most any situation that came up and kept everyone smiling and laughing with her quick wit.  The family hosted a birthday celebration last March where she enjoyed her family and friends who came.  Four children survive; in addition, Elsie was survived by a sister, 19 grandchildren and 43 great grandchildren.  Funeral and burial took place in Salt Lake City.

August 23, 2014 – LaVern Burnett, just two weeks past her 90th birthday, passed away in Ogden. She was an extremely talented person as she could sew or mend anything. Most of her life she was a stay at home mom where she sewed and did alterations for her friends and made rugs on her loom.  She worked a few years at Utah Tailoring Mill and taught sewing at the Utah School for the Deaf. She made shirts and sport jackets for her sons.  She and Joe married in 1944 at the Logan LDS Temple. Over the next fifteen years they lived in Ogden, Rifle, Colorado, Layton and Denver, Colorado. Early in their marriage, they relocated many times as dad advanced his career as an industrial engineer.  Two sons were born in Rifle and the youngest son was born in Ogden. In 1959 they settled in their home in Ogden  They enjoyed travel and each summer, took their sons many places throughout the United States. Her greatest joy was her family. LaVern was laid to rest beside her beloved Joe in Ogden, after the funeral service.

September 2014 Holidays

  Labor Day

7    Grandparents Day

11  9/11 Remembrance

17  Constitution Day

24  Rosh Hashanah

26  Native American Day

2014 UTRID Conference – Awards

Julie Smith and Jodi B. Kinner

IMG_0218At the UTRID banquet on August 8, 2014, Beth Ann Campbell, our very first RID certified interpreter was awarded with the Kim Maibaum Lifetime Achievement Award for her amazing contributions to the Utah Interpreting and Deaf communities. She was the “first” interpreter in so many settings within our community, forging the way for those who followed. Truly, we are all where we are today because of the efforts of people like Beth Ann.

Suffice to say, she truly was a pioneer within the ASL interpreting community dedicating her career to the interpreting field and working with the Utah Deaf community.

A child of Deaf parents, she never recalls a time when she was not interpreting. However, in 1963 she began interpreting within the community, starting down a path that would lead to a lifetime career. In 1965 Beth Ann attended an RID training program in Indiana where she was the first candidate to test for certification, which she passed. This gives her the unique distinction of being the first individual in the nation to become RID certified. From that point on, she worked in various community, medical, and higher educational settings. In 1970 she was the first interpreter at the University of Utah. In 1972 she went on to become the first full-time interpreter for the Division of Rehabilitation. Between 1975 and 1980, on a volunteer basis, she interpreted the nightly news in a corner on the TV screen. Beth Ann interpreted for Dr. Robert Sanderson and W. David Mortenson as they lobbied the legislature for changes in both Deaf education and Deaf community outreach services. She was one of the first hearing individuals to join UAD and served on the UAD board. In 1968 Beth Ann was a part of the founding of the original URID (the organization predating UTRID) serving as secretary. From 1985 – 1989 she was the Director of the Utah Community Center for the Deaf. Most of these accomplishments were done prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act, the law which requires an interpreter be provided in these settings.

More details regarding her career can be found:

http://www.utahdeafhistory.com/biographies-of-prominent-utah-interpreters.html

http://www.utahdeafhistory.com/utah-interpreting-service.html

Dr. Sanderson complimented her by saying “Beth Ann Campbell, my long suffering and patient interpreter and colleague, a tenacious advocate of the deaf, who was always ready” (Sanderson, 2004).

Campbell

“Surpassing the Standards.”   

2014 UT-ASLTA Conference

Greg Montgomery

Utah American Sign Language hosted the annual conference on July 31st and August 1st at the Robert Sanderson building.  The theme of the conference was “Surpassing the Standards”.  World Languages has adopted the 5 C’s to help improve language learning in our classrooms.  The focus of our conference came from ACTFL’s National Standards for teaching world languages, the 5 C’s: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities.  The goal of the 5 C’s is to promote total immersion of the language.  The 5 C’s has recently been established and many of us are still unfamiliar with how to incorporate them into our lesson plans.

We were fortunate to have Dr. Kim Brown Kurz, from NTID as our keynote speaker and presenter all day on July 31st.   She is currently the department chairperson for the ASL program at NTID.  With her expertise, she shared with us ideas and topics covering the 5 C’s and how we could incorporate them in our lesson plans.  She had us in groups where we discussed each of the 5 C’s.  The groups were very beneficial because we were able to see how other teachers used their lesson plans.  Some of us gave great ideas and some of us learned a lot from team members.

On July 31st, David Davenport, Brandon Hill, and Dan Mathis provided us with a workshop on 5 C’s.  David started the conference with teaching philosophies and how we can identify which philosophy or method that best suits our teaching ASL.  He pointed out that there is not one way but several methods we can incorporate in our teaching strategies.

Brandon Hill showed us how the technology can help us assess our students better.  His presentation on ASL Assessment provided us with excellent and important aspects.  Newer programs (i.e., GoReact, Canvas, etc…) now allow us to better evaluate our ASL students as well as provide instant feedback/suggestion.  Students don’t need to wait for few days to get back the teachers’ feedbacks. He also showed us how we can improve our testing the students by being aware of what is the main purpose for testing.

Dan Mathis led the group discussion with a panel of deaf and hearing ASL teachers.  He provided the panel with common questions that many of us have.  The audience had opportunities to view the panels’ remarks as well as shared their own experiences.

Overall, the conference was very helpful to all of us who needed the extra information.  The best news was that we have 17 new members added to our organization.   We encourage all to participate next time to benefit and learn from our talented ASL teachers.

Jean Massieu School News

Michelle Tanner

It is always great to see the students once again at the start of each new school year and this year is no exception.  Children were thrilled to be at school once more.  We have many new faces to welcome; from new teachers to new aides, to new students.  It is an exciting time of year!  We are thrilled school has begun once again!

Over the summer the roof on the north section of the building has been repaired to prevent leaks from occurring.  We are still working on completing exterior items for the new modulars housing the middle school students.  Within the next few weeks there will also be a new parking lot for anyone coming to visit the JMS campus.

We are still looking for a new JMS Director.  We are hopeful to have this position filled soon.  Any updates will be posted with UAD.

Back to school night will be September 4th from 6 – 8pm.  Parents will be instructed on some state required training for parents, meet the teachers and ratify the PTA budget.  We encourage all to attend this kick off for the year.

5th Annual Cycling Heroes Against Abuse Coming Soon!

Sego Lily is thrilled to announce the 5th annual bike event coming soon!

When: Saturday, September 6th

Time: 8:00am-12:00pm

Where: Foxboro Regional Park 1100 North Skipton Drive North Salt Lake, UT 84087

What will we do? Ride bikes up the Legacy Parkway Bike Trail or walk/run 5k for a good cause!

Cost: $25 individual; $50 for family/team

To register go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cyclingheroes2014

Why come? To come together to fight for a SAFER community!

Raffle tickets to win a FREE bike! Prizes!

Let’s work together to keep our community safe!

Ayas Hussain, Outreach Program Coordinator

Bike Event Chair, Ayas@slcad.org

Deaf PIP Update

Paula Pittman

We are beginning our new 2014-2015 school year with three new staff members, Roberta Dunlap, who is our new ASL/English Orientation Specialist and will also be serving some of our families as a Deaf Mentor, and Glorie Kayhart, who will be our Deaf Mentor serving the St. George and Cedar City area. Our current executive assistance, Susan Westergard, will be moving into a part time office tech position to help us with our data system (and to allow her to spend more time with her grandchildren!), so we hired a new executive secretary, Michelle Green, who will be taking over many of the office responsibilities in PIP. I’m also excited to announce that Jamie Warengo, who is one of our experienced Deaf Mentors, will be moving into the role of Lead Deaf Mentor, and will be supporting our Deaf Mentors in their work with families.  We are thrilled to have them all on our staff and know that they will help us more effectively serve our children and families!

We will start our new school year with training, and we are grateful to be able to bring in the Deaf Mentor National Trainers, Jodee Crace and Stacy Abrams, from the SKI-HI Institute to partner with me to provide 3 days of in depth training for our Deaf Mentor Staff.  Our Parent Advisors will also come together for training in September, and we will also begin our Toddler Groups in September.  So the 2013-2014 school year is off to a busy start!

We still have one part time Deaf Mentor position open for someone living in the Salt Lake City area.  For this position we need a Deaf person who is fluent in ASL, enjoys people (especially babies and toddlers), is an excellent communicator, is reliable and dependable, is actively involved in the Deaf Community, and is enthusiastic about helping families communicate effectively with their child using an ASL/English approach. If you feel this describes you and you would enjoy working as a Deaf Mentor, please contact Michelle Green at michelleg@usdb.org.

In the year to come, we hope to have some fun activities for our families and children to participate in.  We often need volunteers from the community to help us carry out these activities, and we would love to involve the Deaf Community in more ways in the future. Every volunteer that participates in any of our activities must go through a process to be cleared as a USDB volunteer.  This takes a bit of time, and we are trying to build a team of volunteers that we can call on when we host fun events for our families. If you are interested in the possibility of volunteering to help us with some of these activities, we would love for you to contact us! Again, Michelle Green (michelleg@usdb.org) will be the person you will need to contact.  Just let her know you are interested in volunteering for PIP activities and she will make sure you receive a volunteer packet.

We appreciate the support of the Deaf Community in Deaf PIP and look forward to another great year!

Utah School for the Deaf Alumni Reunion 130th Anniversary

Anne Post Fife

What a way to celebrate our recent Utah School for the Deaf (USD) Alumni Reunion and ending it with a great bang!! The USD Alumni Reunion 130th Anniversary was held from Thursday July 31, 2014 to Saturday August 2, 2014.  We hosted the registration at West Valley City Crystal Inn & Suites Hotel.  We gave the attendees their badges, tickets (for each night) and a fabulous t-shirt!  The t-shirts were created by our own alumni, Michael Barney.  Our USD Alumni Reunion Committee worked hard to make this reunion a memorable one!

On Thursday July 31 – the reunion hosted a family event at Hollywood Connections in West Valley City from 5 pm to 9 pm. We had 60+ people in attendance, including a few kids (children of alumni)!  We hosted a delicious buffet dinner at the Hollywood Connections Lieutenants Diner.  The Lieutenants Diner was a fantastic place that’s so much like 50’s Diner surroundings! We also passed out Hollywood Connections play cards, so attendees could enjoy the fun at the Hollywood Connections such as mini-golf, krazy kars, balloon tower, crazy bus, and of course there was the carousel!  We also hosted the premiere of John Maucere’s “No Ordinary Hero: the SuperDeafy Movie” at the Carmike Ritz Theaters in West Valley City.  There was a great turn out!  We had 100+ people in attendance!  The movie was fantastic! We even had John Maucere come in as SuperDeafy!  We had a brief Q&A after the movie, and then we all moved back to the Hollywood Connections (next to Carmike Ritz Theaters). There we had the chance to take great pictures and make memories while visiting with SuperDeafy!  SuperDeafy does inspire all of us!!

On Friday August 1 – we held unique presentations in the Diamond Conference Room at the Crystal Inn & Suites Hotel.  We had Jodi Kinner – ‘History of Utah School for the Deaf,’ Robin Traveller – ‘Hospital Kids for Deaf Patients,’ and Kristi Mortensen – ‘Alumnus History.’  The presentations were from 11:50 am to 3:50 pm with a 15 minute break and a social/free time in between presentations.  We had 20+ in attendance.  The people who attended benefited from these presentations.  The USD Alumni Reunion Committee appreciated the presenters!

Then we hosted ‘The John Maucere Show’ at the Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Taylorsville.  The show was from 5 pm – 9 pm.  There were 70+ people in attendance.  John Maucere performed his comedy debut.  We had laughs! Then after the show, we were treated to delicious light refreshments from Chick-fila-A.  We also had the picture boards that have been around for a long time.  There were nine picture boards that we brought down from the Utah Schools for the Deaf and the Blind in Ogden.  The people in attendance enjoyed reviewing pictures and reminiscing.  Then later in the evening, The USD Alumni Reunion combined with Utah Deaf Night (UDN) for the weekend Deaf Night Out at the Bout Time Pub & Grill in West Valley City, just a walk from the Crystal Inn & Suites Hotel.  It started at 9 pm and went on until midnight.  Some people stayed longer to catch up on news with others!  We lost count of those who attended!

On Saturday August 2 – with the registration finishing up at the hotel, it was a free day for anyone who attended.  We hosted a fantastic evening at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley City.  We had 100+ in attendance!  We opened with a great banquet dinner from Dickey’s.  There was an open cash bar.  Also we had a fun photo booth from Utah Jive!  That was the most popular thing the alumni gathered to grab pictures!  We had the Anderson Twins perform for us!  Levi and Clay Anderson gave a hilarious show that made all of us laugh our heads off.  We also had Joel Coleman, the USDB superintendent, and his daughter and Michelle Tanner, USDB assistant superintendent, with her husband, in attendance!  We had Rachel and Michael Farner from the Farner Photography there as well.  They did our fabulous alumni group picture.  They also stayed and took photographs throughout the evening, including those who stayed to eat, gathered for the table group pictures!  The pictures will be available for purchase via our reunion website at www.usdalumnireunion.org soon!  We also had Remember When video come in.  The DVDs are now available; it only includes the Saturday event – the Anderson Twins.  Again, the order forms are available on our reunion website and also on our USD Alumni Reunion page on Facebook.

The reunion was fantastic!  It was a GREAT turnout!

The USD Alumni Reunion Committee is excited to plan our next reunion in the summer of 2019 for  the 135th Anniversary!

Thanks to the USD Alumni Reunion Committee for the great effort and time!  The committee includes Anne Post Fife, Chairperson; Chris Wagstaff, Co-Chair; Janet Nicholes, Treasurer; Troy Harrop, Registration; Halerie Cleveland Thorsen, Advertising; Julie Kimbrel, Volunteer Coordinator; Alma Clark, Ron & Lisa Heinrich, Committee Members; Michael Barney, T-Shirt & Design; and Rosa Maria Rathbun, Emeritus.  We also thank others who volunteered to make this event successful!

See you in summer of 2019 for our USD Alumni Reunion 135th Anniversary!!!

Annual Picnic

PurpleTieGala_2.10

SLC_Vol1

STG_Vol1

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