The Stuttering Auctioneer

"I don't stutter like I used to. Now, I stutter professionally!"
-Jake Ohlinger

By Jake Ohlinger

I grew up on a farm in a small southwest Iowa town with a population of 300. My senior high school graduation class was eleven. In spite of my stutter, I was elected senior class and student body president.

I enjoyed sports but was not the best at them. So, I chose to officiate the sport of basketball in our community. As a high school sophomore, I believe I was the youngest licensed Iowa state high school basketball referee. I learned the laws of the game and knew how to blow the whistle to enforce the rules.

With eleven siblings growing-up on a farm in the 50’s & 60’s, we created a lot of our own entertainment. My brothers and sisters could not remember a time when I did not stutter. It was reported that I did not start to talk at an early age and I let others do the talking for me. I also had lots of (good intentional, non-professional) speech help from my parents, grandparents, siblings, relatives, friends, and neighbors. Despite constant instruction, I still stuttered.

During my senior year of high school, a person from Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation stopped at our school and inquired if there was anyone in our area that could benefit from Vocal Rehabilitation Services. This was the start of my formal professional speech therapy. Right after graduation in the summer of 1964, I experienced my first real speech therapy session under the care of speech clinician Barbara Murray. For 30 minutes per week during that summer, I learned and grew in the direction of speech improvement. It was great.

I enrolled in the University of Iowa solely for speech therapy. Dr. Dean E. Williams was my chief speech therapist and my academic advisor there. In spite of being classified as a severe stutterer, I learned ways to improve my talking. Along the way I helped to train a number of future Iowa speech therapists. I also earned a BA degree with majors in Speech Pathology & Audiology and Psychology and a minor in Public Speaking.

From the University of Iowa, I started work in the Council Bluffs Public Schools as a speech teacher. I met and married the love of my life, Kathy. Stuttering still played a big role in my life. This was also the time of raising our young family with the demands of time and money.

After successful careers in teaching and serving in many positions within Proctor & Gamble (securing the Pepto-Bismol brand, among other achievements), I was able to retire with full benefits at the age of 52. I began to consider and dream about the next phase of my life.

As a boy, my father would take me to farm auctions. I fell in love with the auction then and the auctioneering chant, in particular. But how could I, as a severe stutterer, ever become an auctioneer? I received support and encouragement from friends, family, and well-respected peers. Still I knew many others must have thought I was crazy. I was given the advice "you will never know unless you try." It gave me the motivation to give it a shot.

During this same time, the Convention of the National Stuttering Association was happening in Atlanta. They were having an auction for fun and financial support for the organization. I ask the person serving as auctioneer if I could auction an item? He said yes. I purchased a box of Pepto-Bismol tablets for $5. That evening at the very end of the auction, the auctioneer, Dr. Lee Reeves called me to the podium and introduced me. I said a few words about Pepto-Bismol and then started the bidding. I went from $0.50 to $1…$2… $5…$10…$15…$20…$25…$30…$40…and finally $50! I sold the box of Pepto-Bismol tablets for $50.00 to a person from Texas. This gave me the confidence to move forward with my Auctioneering Dream.

I attended the Southeastern School of Auctioneering in 1999. I did well in school, took the South Carolina Auctioneers Exam, scored well and now I have been a licensed South Carolina Auctioneer for 20 years.

Over many years of auctioneering, I have personally conducted a large number of auctions, from personal estates to benefit fundraisers. My first love is auction fundraisers for worthy causes, and I'm thankful to have had the opportunity to help so many with worthwhile needs.

From the Summer 2019 Magazine

CELEBRITY FOCUS

Emily Blunt

Actress Emily Blunt struggled with stuttering early in her life. A teacher encouraged her to act in a school play at age 12 despite her stuttering.

Blunt’s name is prominently featured on the Stuttering Foundation's list of Famous People Who Stutter.

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.

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.

Darren Sproles

Darren Sproles, a former player for The Philadelphia Eagles, the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers, made history in 2007 when he became the first player in NFL history to return a kickoff and a punt for his first two NFL touchdowns in the same game. In 2021, he was selected to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

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.