Steve Hood
Stephen Boutwell Hood died peacefully on Wednesday, March 21, 2018. Steve was born on March 23, 1942, the son of Katherine and Harry Hood. His siblings include Jane, William and Nancy. He married Nancy Lippitt on March 18, 1972, and they had two children, Chris and Elizabeth. Highlights of his childhood included being in the Boy Scouts, where he rose to the rank of Eagle Scout and was the Troop Bugler. Summers were spent in New Hampshire at Camp Wyanoke where early on he was a camper and later a counselor. During most of these years he was the camp bugler. Following college at Denison University in Ohio he went on to the University of Wisconsin where he earned his Doctorate in Speech Pathology. During his career he helped many hundreds of students to become Speech Therapists and many other people to speak more fluently. In addition to helping people talk more fluently he practiced skills at home by teaching his two beloved children to be effective communicators. He took great pride in following their accomplishments through high school, college and their successful careers. In 2003, he welcomed his wonderful daughter-in-law, Heather Graham, into his family and rejoiced at the birth of his two grandsons, Graham and Marshall. With God's help he was able to become an Eagle Scout. Without God how would he have passed the hurdles of a rigorous Doctoral Program and without the help of God how would he have succeeded in helping so many people become successful communicators? With God's help he was able to become a loving husband, a wonderful father and grandfather. With God's guidance he successfully helped his grandchildren master the idiosyncrasies of the American language. Steve will be missed. Celebration of Life service will be held on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at 7:00pm at Cottage Hill Presbyterian Church. The family will receive friends from 6pm to the time of service. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Cottage Hill Presbyterian Church in Mobile, AL, and the National Stuttering Foundation. The caring staff of Darby Funeral Home is in charge of these arrangements.
Published in the Mobile Register and Baldwin County on Mar. 30, 2018
The following history about Steve was shared in person and also through extensive correspondence with Judith Kuster over the years.
Steve shared some information about the origin of his passion for stuttering, "Of all the disorder areas, stuttering was the most exciting. Maybe this was because as a youngster I had a friend who stuttered. In college I had a fraternity brother who stuttered, at a summer camp where I was a counselor there were campers and two other counselors who stuttered. I saw before me a great opportunity."
Steve came to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1965 with an undergraduate degree (BA) in Speech Communications from Denison, a small, private liberal arts university in Granville, Ohio.
His mentor at the University of Wisconsin where he earned an MA (1966) and PhD (1969) was Dr. Lois Nelson, who had an important influence on many professor and clinicians who focused their careers on stuttering including Peter Ramig, Barry Guitar, Judith Eckardt, and me, among others.
Steve's 35-year teaching career included Bowling Green State University (1969-1984) 
and the University of South Alabama (1984-2004) where he influenced many students to continue his own focus on stuttering, supervising their dissertations, teaching undergraduate and graduate classes, and a sharing his expertise in their clinical experience with people who stutter. He chaired dissertation committees for several who are/were actively involved with Fluency Disorders including Gordan Blood, Horabail Venkatagiri, Albert Oratio, Robert Kroll, and Joseph Stigora and was on the Dissertation Committee for — among several others whose names are familiar to the stuttering community — Carl Dell and Bruce Shulman.
Steve participated in the Stuttering Foundation of America (now SF) intensive workshop in Marquette, during the summer of 1971. During that time Malcolm Fraser, Charles Van Riper, and many others including Lon Emerick, Paul Czuchna were there all summer. Other "stuttering experts" made brief appearances: including Stanley Ainsworth, Albert Murphy, Dean Williams, Joseph Sheehan, George Shames, and Hal Luper, and Woody Starkweather. Starkweather wrote the SFA book about the summer experience. Soon after, Van Riper invited Steve to spend a weekend with him at his cabin near Kalamazoo where he talked about editing the first edition of To The Stutterer. In 1972, Steve and his wife Nancy were in Iowa City, working with Dean Williams in his intensive summer therapy program. This is where Steve worked to edit the first edition of Stuttering: WORDS.
Steve designed the T-shirt "Stuttering is OK, Because What I Say is Worth Repeating." He raffled some of them off at an NSA convention and first offered the design to the NSA and then offered it to the Stuttering Foundation which is still marketing them.
After Steve was no longer teaching, he sent me an abundance of his favorite materials relating to stuttering. They are now housed and are available on the Stuttering Home Page as The S. B. Hood Library of Teaching Materials for Stuttering. People are free to adapt and use these materials with proper attribution. Steve also participated in several International Stuttering Awareness Day online conferences where he served faithfully by responding to numerous questions from people who stutter, their families, students, and professionals, especially clinicians serving challenging (anonymous) cases as one of the professors in The Prof Is In from 1999-2003 and writing the following papers:
"I've Got a Secret -- And It's Scaring Me to Death! (The Story of a Covert Stutterer)" by Steve Hood (Alabama, USA) and Chris Roach (Texas, USA). ISAD 2001
Desirable outcomes from Stuttering Therapy by Stephen Hood (Alabama, USA) ISAD 2003
He published in JSLHR, JFD, J.Comm.DIS and LSHSS, and also authored several book chapters and edited four publications for the Stuttering Foundation of American. He also published articles for FRIENDS, and the National Stuttering Association, becoming a member of the NSA in 1978. Among his many conference and convention presentations are several for the NSA. I remember an outstanding panel discussion on "recovery" he put together for the ASHA convention in Seattle, WA, 1996. The panel featured Walter Manning, William Murphy, David Daly, Ken St. Louis, Robert Quesal, Barry Guitar, Peter Ramig, and Lois Nelson. Steve gave me a video copy of the panel presentation and the audio is currently online at Voices: Past and Present
Steve was named a FELLOW of the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association in 1981 and was awarded the NSA Outstanding SLP of the Year in 2000.
Steve's spiritual journey
A side of Steve was deeply spiritual. On January 10,2017, he sent me a copy of a sermon he wrote entitled "Coming to our Senses" based on Exodus 4:1 and 10-17. He was raised in the Congregational Church. At Denison he reported that when he attended church he went to the local Baptist Church because the choir was "so terrific." In Wisconsin, he attended Lakeside Lutheran Church, served as one of the youth leaders for the high school Luther League and sang in the choir. When helping to start the Mobile, Alabama Chapter of the NSP/NSA, a man who stuttered quite severely as a kid and young adult showed up at the first meeting. He turned out to be a Presbyterian minister. He invited Steve to attend his church. Steve and Nancy soon joined and Steve was very active, including serving in church offices and he and Nancy were choir members. Steve's memorial service was held in Cottage Hill Presbyterian Church in Mobile, AL on Tuesday, April 3, 2018.
Steve's life, as with all lives, had some unfortunate incidents but Steve understood God's grace and forgiveness. He appreciated the support of family and many friends and colleagues through difficult times, including several serious health and personal challenges.
His Friends and Family Remember
If you care to add a personal memory of the positive influence Steve had on your life, send it to judith.kuster@mnsu.edu for consideration.
Judy Kuster: Steve and I remained friends for over 50 years, starting as classmates in the Speech Pathology program at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I remember one evening when we were studying together and he asked me to be his proof-reader. I truly appreciated his support of me personally - he sent countless materials when I was asked to teach the undergraduate course in stuttering at MSU, Mankato, and was always responsive to any questions. He wrote strong letters of support in my quest for advancement at my university and when I was nominated to become an ASHA Fellow. He also supported the Stuttering Foundation by sending substantial monetary gifts in remembrance or honor of various colleagues, including several times of me. He was always generous with his time and talents whenever I asked him for information or to participate in the ISAD online conferences. Even during his last communications with me a few months before he died, his letters always reflected his positive nature. I will miss him, but know I will see him again.
