I really want to thank both Jean Cordano, whose daughter is now President of Gallaudet and Evelyn Zola, former teacher at St. John's School for the Deaf, for their encouragement and support for allowing me to experiment with different ideas, learning leadership skillls. As a human being, knowing my strengths and weaknesses, but willing to take a risk then keeping the status quo.
Once our banquet being held in Lake Geneva was delayed because Gilbert Eastman missed a connection in Detroit. Gilbert Eastman and my brother was classmates at ASD in Connecticut, both fails the Gallaudet entrance examination. Gilbert stayed another year at ASD before his acceptance into Gallaudet while my brother began a career with the New York Times as a linotypist, the rest is history Wisconsin Congressman Steve Gunderson held a town hall meeting with Gallaudet President I King Jordan in his district then spoke at our banquet with Mary Lou Novitski of Deaf Mosiac. Steve is one of the several from Wisconsin that serves on the Gallaudet Board of Trustees.
During Gallaudet for Unity, I got a call from a daughter of one of our trustees, L. Richard Kinney who agreed to speak at our chapter at SLAD in Delavan, given her assurances that we'll not "lynch" him. A second BOT member who works at Utratec also replied to our concerns. BOT John McCain resigns during the protest but still remains as a strong supporter of Deaf causes the rest of his life. Francis Parson spoke about her experiences traveling around the world, showing us slides from, of all places, Antarctica.
Oftentimes we someone will be soliciting us in making a contribution to Gallaudet to be matched by corporations and foundations grants so don't leave earth without leaving a will with Gallaudet as one of the beneficiaries of your estate.
Samuel Sonnenstrohl spoke in Minneapolis, allowing our undeserved northern Wisconsin alumni to attend them as our events always rotate between Delavan, Milwaukee and Madison.
We also offer scholarship to Deaf students at WSD to attend Gallaudet in the fall, they can't relied on DVR alone, they need our support as they are our future.
We did a survey asking our alumni what areas we need improvements to serve them. Their major concerns is that we don't have programs serving families with children. I also thought it's interesting that our Jewish Alumni were unable to participate due to Sabbath. Keeping that in mind, the next banquet was held in a hotel that has an indoor waterpark, having two workshops starting the morning session "Birds of Prey" for children having a nature center bringing in four live predators. The events was sponsored by T-Mobile who paid the fees in exchange for a booth at our event promoting their Sidekicks that were popular at the time. Children became exciting when they can touch an owl and the feathers on display The children then cannonballed into our waterpark, splashing each other and playing with Nerd footballs for the rest of the afternoon while Trudy Suggs gave a PowerPoint presentation in the afternoon. A great turnout and I hope that they continue the tradition after my departure to Florida.
Dr. Davila auctioned off his tie, an unusual way to raise funds. We also purchased a brick, donating $500, having our chapter engraved on it. I don't know where our brick are located on the Gallaudet campus.
We had a few informal gatherings such cruising down the Mississippi River gambling on the Casino Belle, a round of miniature golf, a night at Gameswork arcade, a view of Lake Michigan from atop of Wind Point lighthouse and a Civil War reenactment weekend, etc
Cindy Decker was the moderator of the DPN live broadcast at our Milwaukee cable studio, having five alumni and five students on stage. We hook up a TTY so Deaf viewers can call in. It was a tough being a producer sending signals to my floor manager and technical director who handles everything from giving instructions to our three cameramen to closing credits. We uses student interpreters from UW-Milwaukee ITP to assist us. One note I want to point out, four of the students who participated in our program were arrested being on the grounds during a game between the Brewers and the Orioles in Baltimore where they stripped off their shirts showing off the numerals 3,000 on their chests, grabbing the attention of Robin Yount who achieves that milestone in hits.
Sam was so upset at me for passing out flyers to host a tour of Shakers Village in Kentucky. I told him that we want the group rate.
In Washington, the GUAA reveal a portrait of I King Jordan and "Bummy," known for his parliamentary procedure workshops, given me the President Award.
I enjoy alumni tours to the Midde East with Hank Young, and the Scandinavian countries with Dan Starkey. Sam told me that GUAA has no policy on alumni tours and don't want to be liable when I along with Beyond Barriers, based in Colorado, to sponsor an unique "Harry Potter" tours in England where we were trained as Dragon fighter, riding the Hogwarts train, playing broomball and a medieval feasts with actor Chris Rankin, "Percy Weasley' character,etc.The tour were so popular that Deaf children cried when told they can't join our group traveling alone without an adult to supervise them.
My last project was to get Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" on the silver screen with open-captions. Martin Cohen of Amblin Entertainment advised me to contact Tripod and Marcus Theaters assigned Amy Wangerin to be my coordinator. We work together to bring OC films to the Midwest. We decided to start right away with "Dances with Wolves" rather than wait until Spielberg film is released. Our strategy was to use mass media to promote our OC films, starting with three theaters before expanding to Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Indiana and from annual screenings to every weekends. Our first, "Dances with Wolves," which just won an Oscar, was a total success with 580 Deaf attending our screenings in the Milwaukee area, Oak Creek and Mequon, and Madison. We noticed that there were a good turnout of WSD students so we start putting OC films into a theater in Whitewater and elsewhere in the state where Deaf can have access to OC films locally. Local businesses were charged $1,00 to advertised on our flyers. We raised about $15,000 in one year, not including expenses. We didn't go over the limit where we are required to report income to the IRS. Jane audited all our cash flow which matched every receipts submitted. It's complicated, theater rentals, taxes on tickets, booking fees, and promotional costs. We had a double feature once having a Sundance film, "Listening Carefully," with Deaf actress Terrylene, obtaining a 35mm print from NYC to accompany "Groundhog Day. One of the perks of my involvement is getting invited to world premiere parties in Hollywood, having a great time with Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholas on the "Hoffa" set and Kevin Costner on the "Wyatt Earp" set. Columbia Studios send us 400 "Hear No Evil" posters, which featuring Marlee Matlin.so I gave them to WSD, enough to pin up in every classrooms and on every dormitory doors.
All the materials were given to Tom Harbinson to preserve our heritage and the live broadcast 3/4 inches tapes were send to the Gallaudet archives, including a Len Peacock interview with Gary Olsen that was also shown on the Silent Network.
I hope someday I'll return to Wisconsin, it's still on my bucket list.
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