THE KALAMAZOO STUTTERS COUNCIL

The Kalamazoo Stutters Council
January 12, 2009
Subject: The Kalamazoo Stutterers Council
This is a true story. I was there when it happened.
I am a stutterer and there was a time in my life when I had trouble saying my own name. The Gazette’s recent articles on stuttering brought to mind one of the efforts by Kalamazoo stutterers to help the students in the Van Riper Speech Pathology Department. The students were not stutterers, they were only learning how to help stutterers deal with their problem. A WMU student who stuttered, [not in Speech Pathology] had the idea of making an organization of stutterers available to the students so that their speech pathology training could be more realistic by working with real stutterers. The effort was made in the late 1970’s to organize the Kalamazoo Stutterers Council. A notice was published to invite those who stuttered to meet at a home on Knollwood St. to organize the Kalamazoo Stutterers Council. The organization meeting was held in a large front room with about 25 or 30 stutterers on chairs placed along the walls of the room. The meeting began by attempting to state the purpose of the Kalamazoo Stutterers Council. When a person who stutters is in a group of stutterers, the problem becomes much worse because self-consciousness takes over and stuttering increases immensely. After less than hour, the organization effort failed while the stuttering became much worse. The meeting did not achieve its goals. It was the last time the Kalamazoo Stutterers Council ever met. It’s important to have a sense of humor.