Golfers Stay on Track to Make Astonishing Gift to Memphis Foundation

For Immediate Release
Contact: Greg Wilson
gregwilsonpr@gmail.com
571-239-7474

Photo caption: Stuttering Foundation staffers Terri Jones (front row, second from left) and Patty Hamm (front row, third from left) with Shelby Railroad employees. Front row: Gina Hopkins, Terri Jones, Patty Hamm, and Ralph Parker. Back row: Kirk Tarver, James Lyons, Jim Bower, and John Tarver.

MEMPHIS (Oct. 28, 2013) — Kirk and John Tarver and their Memphis-based Shelby Railroad Services Inc. raised more than $10,000 for the Memphis-based Stuttering Foundation.

Shelby Railroad held their annual fund-raising golf outing and dinner on Oct. 17 at Wedgewood Golf Club, in Olive Branch, Miss.

"Once again, it is with deep gratitude that we accept this gift from the Tarver family, Shelby Railroad, and all of their loyal friends and customers who contributed to a cause that is personal and dear to the Tarver family," said Terri Jones, CFO of the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation. "Their generous continued support has enabled us to move from awareness to action — and that is truly making a difference in the lives of those affected by stuttering here in Memphis and worldwide."

The golf outing honors Ruth McGuiness Tarver, the late mother of company president and founder John Tarver. Ruth stuttered from the time she was a young child.

"She was a great lady," Shelby Railroad Vice President Kirk Tarver said of his grandmother. "It didn’t matter to us, but it embarrassed her. Back in the ‘30s, there wasn’t any help."

The Stuttering Foundation closed its office early and the staff joined in the celebration.

The Stuttering Foundation is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization dedicated to helping those who stutter, their families and professionals in the field of speech. The Foundation’s Web sites, www.StutteringHelp.org and www.tartamudez.org, offer free downloadable resources and streaming video. The organization also maintains a toll-free helpline, 800-992-9392.

Shelby Railroad Services Inc., 3021 Shelby Drive, was founded by John Tarver in August 1974. The family owned company is committed to providing the railroad industry with the highest quality materials and construction services in the mid-south and surrounding areas. Their services include design, new construction, maintenance, repair, and the supply of rail materials and equipment.

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About the Foundation 
Malcolm Fraser, a successful Memphis businessman who stuttered, went on to establish and endow the nonprofit Stuttering Foundation in 1947. The Stuttering Foundation provides a toll-free helpline, 800-992-9392, and free online resources on its Website, www.StutteringHelp.org, including services, referrals and support to people who stutter and their families, as well as support for research into the causes of stuttering.

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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.

Frank Wolf

This Virginian congressman has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1981. The longtime supporter of the Stuttering Foundation drew national attention to childhood stuttering in 2006 when he submitted an article about Tiger Woods from the SFA newsletter to the Congressional Record. The congressman is featured in the Stuttering Foundation's Famous People Who Stutter brochure.

Lewis Carroll

The recent Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, garnered a great deal of media hype. Even though the mainstream media has not made mention that Carroll was a person who stuttered, his family history gives credence to the discovery of the genetic link to stuttering. Carroll was born to parents who were first cousins; almost all of their eleven children, three girls and seven boys, struggled with stuttering past childhood.

Bob Love

Bob Love has dreamt about being a great public speaker since his early days in Bastrop Louisiana, even though, as a young man, he could barely put two words together, let alone speak a full sentence.

In spite of his severe stuttering disability, Bob Love, the son of a sharecropper, rose to become a Chicago Bulls NBA superstar, whose records were eventually surpassed by Michael Jordan. Throughout his entire athletic career, Bob Love kept his stuttering a secret from the fans who adored him, thinking he could do his “talking” on the basketball court.

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.