School Helps Deaf Students Break the Sound Barrier

--What are just good vibrations to some is music to the ears of a group of deaf students in Falmouth, Me., who can now “feel” sounds in a specially equipped room at their school. The room’s floor, suspended over that of the building’s, vibrates when sound is driven by a pair of 100-watt amplifiers through two 15-inch speakers placed face down on the floor. The special room at the Baxter School for the Deaf also has an audio spectrum analyzer that produces a bar graph of frequencies on a large color television set. “The students dance and exercise when we put on a rock ‘n’ roll tape. Using the spectrum analyzer, they can ‘see’ their ‘s’ sounds, which are very difficult to teach the deaf,” said speech therapist Polly Earl. But best of all, says Earl, is the new avenue of creative expression that has suddenly opened up for them. “We’ve got some who’ve written songs about being deaf,” she said.

--She has seen eight governors come and go. But Brynhild Haugland is still making her way to the Statehouse each day as North Dakota’s longest-serving lawmaker after nearly 50 years of service. The 81-year-old Republican was honored with a 40-minute ovation recently at a joint assembly called in her honor on Brynhild Haugland Day. Haugland, who never married, will also have a room in the Capitol named after her and was presented with a two-inch-thick collection of the legislation she has sponsored. “I am quite alone in this world, but I can assure you that your confidence in me has meant a great deal,” Haugland told colleagues gathered at the assembly.

--After the tow lot refused to take a personal check, Amy Carter brought cash to free her car, which had been impounded for outstanding parking tickets. A radio station in Providence, R. I., where Carter attends Brown University, had paid the $335 in tickets, but the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter still had to pay what was reported to be about $160 in storage fees for the 1983 Mercury Capri. “Don’t get caught with a parking ticket no matter who you are--President’s daughter or the Pope’s father,” said Mike Russo, the lot’s business manager, after Carter retrieved her car. Russo said he was happy to be rid of the car after the national publicity it had attracted.