The 7th World Congress of the International Fluency Association was held in the heart of the Loire Valley in Tours, France, July 2-5, 2012. It brought together more than 200 people, many of them experts in the field of stuttering.

My legs were aching and the summer sun had taken its toll. At this point I had walked approximately 34 miles, amassed 487 strokes, worn three outfits and four pairs of socks, sweated through 6 golf gloves, and made more bogeys than I care to remember.

Bill Leinweber's essay in the Foundation's Summer 2012 issue inspired me to tell my story, in the hope that others, now dreading their lives as stutterers, will be comforted. I'm a lifelong stutterer - now 81 years old and recently retired.

I stutter. I stammer. I have a speech impediment. Whatever you want to call it, it’s part of me, and helped make me who I am today. And I had been challenged with it for what felt like forever. I had spent years hiding from people and shying away from speaking, especially public speaking.

No one ever had to tell Julie Kendall to “keep quiet” when she was growing up. As a moderate-to-severe stutterer, she was all too willing to remain silent. “I rarely spoke when I was young,” said Kendall, a junior sociology major at The College of Wooster and a resident of the Cleveland suburb of Westlake.

“In his book V-V-Voice: A Stutterer’s Odyssey, Scott Damian explores his own personal struggles with stuttering while reminding us through his multitalented career how those obstacles can be overcome,” noted Jane Fraser at the gala. “He is an inspiration.”