Junior Spokesperson Lights the Way

We’ve been keeping up with our energetic and dedicated friend from Kansas, Eva Woolwine.

As reported in our Summer 2005 Newsletter, she was off to the Miss Kansas pageant (June 5 – 12) to compete with stuttering awareness and education as her platform. As a person who stutters herself since early childhood, Eva is passionate about clearing up misconceptions regarding stuttering.

While Eva didn’t win Miss Kansas, she came away a winner nonetheless. As the youngest contestant, she won Newcomer of the Year and Most Inspirational Contestant. Additionally, her platform was rated among the top five!

“This exposure has been such a wonderful opportunity to continue my mission to educate the general public about stuttering,” Eva stressed. “People who stutter are as intelligent and well adjusted as non-stutterers. We are every bit as capable of contributing and succeeding.”

Her enthusiasm earned her a guest spot at The National Association of Young People Who Stutter Friends Convention in Cleveland (July 28-30).

Lee Caggiano, director, said of this years’ program, “We were delighted to have Eva join us at this year’s convention. She served as a wonderful role model for many of the young people attending Friends. Eva showed us all that stuttering does not have to prevent us from reaching our goals and fulfilling our dreams. We were happy to welcome Eva and look forward to having her join us again next year.”

Eva values opportunities such as speaking before the Friends convention in Cleveland, the NSA convention in Chicago, and being highlighted in the Stuttering Foundation’s newsletters. They allow her to encourage young people like herself. “It’s important not to lose sight of the possibilities for improvement, success, and fulfillment. It takes work, but there is hope and help every day!” she declares.

In fact, the Stuttering Foundation has had numerous requests from youngsters, teens, and their friends and families this summer to receive copies of the Summer Newsletter.

“Eva’s success makes her a great role model for us all,” said Jane Fraser, president of SFA.

This fall, Eva intends to study Psychology at a local community college. She will be competing in Miss Kansas USA in November. She will also be working toward her dream, being the first Miss America who stutters, by competing in Miss Kansas preliminaries.

If Eva seems amiable and gracious about not winning Miss Kansas, responding with “I’ll try again next year!” It’s because that is the philosophy she applies to life in general. And that is what she would like to share with all of us: All efforts are victories. Keep trying and you will succeed!

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Bruce Willis

While the world knows Bruce Willis as an A-list actor, few know that he struggled with stuttering throughout his first 20 years.

Walter Bruce Willis was born in 1955 in West Germany to his German mother, Marlene, and his American GI father, David Willis. The family settled in David’s hometown of Penns Grove, New Jersey in 1957, and the couple has three other children.

Byron Pitts

Byron Pitts has brought much attention to stuttering with his memoir, Step Out on Nothing: How Faith and Family Helped Me Conquer Life’s Challenges, released in September, 2009. The book not only details his speech difficulties, but also his illiteracy until age 12 and his unstable family life. Pitts overcame the odds to become the chief national correspondent with ABC News.

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.

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.

Dave Taylor

Dave Taylor has been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter for many years, but probably few people know all of the unique accomplishments of this former hockey great who was born on December 4, 1955, in Levack, Ontario.