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Why NWTA weekend for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Men?
It was two men’s vision.
Roger Dobitz and Greg Gondron talked about their vision holding a weekend for Deaf and Hard of Hearing men.
Roger Dobitz, a hard of hearing man, was an advocate of hard of hearing people while Gondron was an educator/advocate of deaf. Both men had done the weekend training themselves.
It was not till 1997 when Chuck Daube was brought in to interpret for the first deaf man in Milwaukee. Like Dobitz and Gondron, he was an educator/advocate of deaf and had done the weekend training himself.
Two years later, Gondron joined Daube to interpret for Brian Determan in Houston (1999), and again for AJ Roupp in Washington, DC five years later (2004).
In 2005, Gondron, Daube, and Determan were brought in to staff with Roupp at a NWTA weekend at Washington, DC for another deaf man, Windy Windhorn. Unknown to them, there was another deaf man, who went through his weekend during that same year at different time and place.
From there, Gondron, Daube, Determan, and Roupp agreed to form a committee to make Gondron’s vision a reality. Since Dobitz shared the same vision, so he joined the committee afterwards.
With help from the Houston community, the committee made this vision a reality. They held the first Deaf / HH NWTA weekend on November 3-5, 2006 on the site of the Land of My Grandfathers (LOMG) near Houston, Texas.
Among the 32 new initiates, 9 men were deaf men. Three staffers, 2 were deaf men and 1 was hard-of-hearing man, 4 were hearing men who served as interpreters, and 2 were hearing men who were signers.
It was a roaring success!
The committee wholeheartedly agreed to offer a second Deaf/HH NWTA again this year. |
