First she kept asking people to repeat themselves. Then her ear ached after phone calls, because she was pressing the receiver so tightly against her head.

        At 35, Betty Timon was going deaf.

        She went through all the emotions — shock, denial, anger. Then something amazing happened. Mrs. Timon, who had been quiet and unassuming as a hearing person, became ferocious as a deaf one.

        While raising four sons with her husband, Jim, she began pushing for the rights of the hearing-impaired.

        She led a petition drive on Fountain Square, urging TV stations to caption their newscasts. When one failed to send a representative to the protest, Mrs. Timon and others marched to its offices to find out why.

        She formed the Greater Cincinnati chapter of Self Help for the Hearing Impaired. She pushed Cincinnati Bell to install 20 pay phones for the deaf and pressed theaters to offer more captioned movies.

        One friend calls her “kick-butt Betty.” Another nominated her for a national advocacy award from Oticon, a hearing-aid maker.

        Mrs. Timon is 70 now, and her eyes sparkle as she recalls her efforts to participate fully in the world.

        “I have fun with this. I really do,” she says. “I challenge people to think outside of the ordinary.”
       

Dignity and equality

        She was aided greatly by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which has faced several challenges before the U.S. Supreme Court in recent months. This week, the court ruled that citizens could not seek punitive damages — only compensatory ones — against government agencies that fail to provide access for the disabled.

        For Mrs. Timon and others, the ADA has never been about money, anyway, but rather dignity, freedom and equality. It was the ADA, for example, that required each state to maintain phone relay systems for the hearing-impaired. By dialing 711 anywhere in the country, deaf or hearing people now can be connected to operators who translate their conversations to written words.

        Before, “They wouldn't sell you a lousy pizza because they couldn't call back and verify that you wanted one,” Mrs. Timon says.

        She's not sure what caused her hearing loss. Doctors have mentioned heredity or medicines she took as a child. Regardless, she has found peace.

        “I'm very grateful for the fact that I can be in the right place at the right time, to make things happen for more people.”

        As a hearing person for many years, she knows what she and others are missing. As a woman of conviction, she isn't afraid to insist on change.

        In airports, she flusters employees by asking for a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf, then watching as they scramble to find one. This spring, the Galt House in Louisville agreed to place a permanent TDD among the pay phones in its lobby, following her complaint.

        Not long ago, she was called to jury duty in Campbell County. When she said she would need a stenographer, she was told she didn't have to serve.

        “Oh, but I want to.”

        I can just see the twinkle in her eye. She got the stenographer.

       Contact Karen Samples Gutierrez at ksamples@enquirer.com, (859) 578-5584.

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