I grew up in Toledo, Ohio with two sisters, one older and one younger. Our parents were hard working people, my Dad, Walt was a diesel mechanic and my Mom, Kathy covered antennas with plastic. They both grew up in and out of the projects, but made sure we never had to. There were no Ivy League colleges in our futures, just a lot of hard work, school loans and sleep deprivation. I was the first one in my family to earn a college degree and it was with two jobs, going to school full time. My grades weren’t stellar because I usually woke up with my face in a book (osmosis didn’t work for me, wish it did) sometimes in time to make it to class the next day but I did manage to earn my degree. Lobbyist wasn’t even really in our vocabulary. I remember being at a parade downtown when I was very young and a man came up to my Dad, handed him a badge, my dad cussed at him, threw the badge on the ground and pulled us along, away from the man. Apparently, it was a candidate for mayor that my Dad didn’t care for who tried to pawn a badge off on my Dad for support and he wasn’t having any of it. That’s about as political an event that I can remember. So, when I was called a lobbyist, a great lobbyist in fact, by a member of congress, I was stunned and pissed because I didn’t understand.
In 2013 we had just started the West Virginia Branch of Decoding Dyslexia along with about 4-5 other states, so word passed along between parents about this event in Washington, D.C., The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation and Campaign for Grade-Level Reading was hosting a Policy Briefing on Dyslexia and the Quest for Grade-Level Reading Proficiency (Don't Dys Our Kids Report) in February at the National Press Club and they were having guest speakers Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin. We didn’t live far from D.C. so my husband and I decided we would go, some members of other state branches were also going so we decided we could meet up at the briefing. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to spend much time with the other Decoding Dyslexia States because we had scheduled three meetings with our U.S. Senators and House Representative and we pretty much had to run through D.C. to make the meetings.
The two meetings we had before the policy briefing were with our U.S. Senators’ Offices and it was with their staff not them so I assumed all the meetings would be like this because we were just working people and probably didn’t warrant meeting the representatives themselves. I have to be honest at that point in my experience, I didn’t even really know that you could schedule meetings with these people, I thought it was for people with bigger bank accounts than us but when we called, they scheduled appointments for us. We had to run out of the Policy Briefing, got a little lost on the way to our meeting with Congresswoman Capito’s Office but we made it on time. We were called into the office and I’m waiting to see what I now understand is called legislative assistants, but we walk in and I’m thinking H@!y S#!T it’s Congresswoman Capito, NO Way!
As Neil and I were saying goodbye and thanking Congresswoman Capito (now Senator Capito), I told her that I had no idea that it would be that easy. As she shook my hand she said, well, you’re a great lobbyist. I was floored, ecstatic she joined the caucus but not very happy at her last comment to me, I was not a lobbyist! So, I went home, looked up lobbyist and thought, wow, I had no idea, that’s what we had been doing that day for our son. I guess you can call it whatever you like, we just call it getting things done because we’ve made it our mission to bring awareness and change for dyslexic children like our son.
Thank you for taking the time to meet with us that day Senator Capito! It will be remembered fondly.
P.S. I guarantee, if my Dad was still around, he would wonder what in the world we are doing meeting and sitting across from these politicians talking about dyslexia but that’s what it takes to make progress and I know he’d be proud.