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From: Russ Hicks
Date: 11 Oct 2006
Time: 15:04:30 -0500
Remote Name: 71.252.204.114
Hi Tina, ..... Thanks for your kind words. Albany... College of St. Rose? Great school! I could be up there sometime in the future. Stay tuned for details... ..... When did the camps like this stop running? It wasn't a sudden stop, it was more of an evolutionary process. My camp, Shady Trails in Michigan, shut down sometime in the 1980's I believe. The University of Michigan (for unknown reasons) began to de-emphasize speech pathology (probably so they could concentrate on football! Ha, ha, ha!), and the entire culture was changing at that time. My sessions at Shady Trails were EIGHT WEEKS long. No way today that a youngster could afford to do something for 8 weeks during a summer. Kids today are FAR too busy and life is majorly hectic. Times just change... ..... We have "camps" today but they are simply day camps offered maybe twice a week for a month. And then for only part of the day. It is nothing compared to my camp experience! But they are still VERY good. If you're interested in more details on this, contact me via email at russhicks@mail.com. ..... Beneficial experience? Boy howdy YESSS!! I absolutely LOVED it! Even though it didn't help my stuttering, the camp and the people up there were amazing. One of my "speech correctionists" (as we called them back then) left camp for a week to become Miss Pennsylvania in the Miss America pageant. My swimming coach was an Olympic Silver Medalist. The camp cook was a concert pianist. The camp was filled with the most remarkable people you've ever met. I grew up there. It was a totally amazing experience. ..... I have met thousands of people who stutter in my life and it's VERY common that they feel so alone. They thought that they were the only person in the world with that problem. (The NSA motto is "If you stutter, you're not alone.) But I never felt alone. Because of my camp experience since I was ten years old, I always knew that I was not alone. As I said many times, I guess I have really been lucky. And I credit my camp experience with a lot of that luck. ..... The National Stuttering Association (NSA) has a VERY active program called "NSA Kids" which addresses the very issues that you spoke of. Go to http://www.WeStutter.org and you can read all about it. The direct URL for the brochure is https://www.nsastutter.org/catalog/detail.php?id=90. If you want to talk to some people directly involved with that program, email me back at russhicks@mail.com and I can get you in contact directly with the right people. ..... I hope our paths cross some day. And it may sooner than you think... <grin> ..... I wish you the very best, Tina! ..... Russ, email is russhicks@mail.com