More News

Shelby Railroad Raises Over $10K for Stuttering
Kirk and John Tarver and their Memphis-based Shelby Railroad Services Inc. raised more than $10,000 for the Stuttering Foundation. Shelby Railroad held their annual fund-raising golf outing and dinner on Sept. 18 at Wedgewood Golf Club, in Olive Branch, Miss.
They’re Back
It has been 11 years since the release of the popular video Stuttering: For Kids, By Kids. Our new video, For Kids, By Kids: All Grown Up, is an updated look at four of those featured in the original film.
No Pit Stop for this Race Car Driver Who Stutters
Kyle Heckman is a race car driver from Bakersfield, California. He’s had great success at all levels of amateur and professional racing. His dream is to be a fixture on the NASCAR circuit. To do so, he’s looking for a sponsor.
Do Pina Coladas Relate to Stuttering?
Eighty-four years ago, a young Malcolm Fraser thought he had the coconut syrup market cornered. If Malcolm had been a bit more successful in the syrup business, the Stuttering Foundation might have a different look today.
Noel Gallagher of Oasis Rocks On
During the glory days of the band Oasis, it was little-known that Noel Gallagher had overcome a stuttering problem through many years of speech therapy.
Carol Remembered for Helping Those Who Stutter
Carol Ann Cervenka Ecke, 64, of Great Falls, MT, passed away in June from complications after undergoing what was planned to be a routine heart valve replacement in Mesa, Ariz.
Courageous, Inspirational Authors Honored
To celebrate National Stuttering Awareness Week, the Stuttering Foundation honored four authors whose recent books are widely acclaimed by both critics and readers alike.
MSHA Gift Shows It Cares
The Missouri Speech-Language-Hearing Association (MSHA) supported the Stuttering Foundation this year with their MSHA Cares campaign, which raised $864.88.
10th Oxford Dysfluency Conference
One hundred ninety-two delegates from 32 countries met in Oxford, UK, marking 30 years since the first Oxford Dysfluency Conference (ODC) in 1984. Several age-defying attendees of this year’s conference also were present at the inaugural conference.
Frank Dimitri Has the World on a String
Within the stuttering community, the ability of persons who stutter to sing fluently is quite well documented. Famous singers Ed Sheeran, Mel Tillis, Carly Simon, Bill Withers, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Scatman John, Jason Gray, Kendrick Lamar and Ann Wilson all struggled with fluency despite having award-winning singing voices.

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CELEBRITY FOCUS

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.

Kenyon Martin

Kenyon Martin, the basketball sensation who was named to the NBA’s All Star Team in 2004, joins other famous people who stutter in a new brochure. The brochure - which unfolds into a small poster - is available free of charge from The Stuttering Foundation.

The poster is intended to give children and adults who stutter inspiration as they grapple with their speech disorder.

James Earl Jones

Actor James Earl Jones, a Broadway, television and movie star, is well-known for his voice as Darth Vader in Star Wars and his book Voices and Silences. Jones has spoken some of the most memorable lines in the history of American film, but the man known for his voice was once afflicted with a severe stutter.

Bill Withers

While Bill Withers has long been on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter, many people probably didn’t realize he stuttered. He passed away on March 30, 2020.

Born in 1938 in Slab Fork, W.V., Withers was the youngest of six children. When his father died when Withers was small, he was raised by his mother and grandmother, both of whom worked as domestics.

King George

In November 2010, worldwide movie audiences were presented with a most interesting and unusual movie release with The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth as King George VI and Helena Bonham Carter as his wife Elizabeth.

Unfortunately, history may have forgotten the courageous and inspiring story of Prince Albert who stuttered badly and never dreamed that he would ever be king when his older brother, King Edward VIII, abruptly abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee.