CST Spotlight: Longtime Group Client Reflects on the Late Annie Glenn

“She was a Very Easy Person to Talk to”: CST Client, Will, Reflects on Connection to the Late Annie Glenn

By Matthew Edwards, CST Adult Group Therapy Client

“What a small world?!”

The stuttering community offers endless connections between people, who often find something or someone they have in common upon introducing themselves.

It happens time after time. People who stutter, researchers, speech-language pathologists and community leaders often walk into a classroom or conference to quickly find a memory or friend they share with somebody else.

CST group therapy clients never know what they may hear during a meeting— or that what they share might leave a lasting impression on their peers.

During a group session in the spring of 2024, CST client Will sat attentively in his seat, enjoying a discussion recapping the previous group meeting. One week prior, the group meeting centered around a presentation about the portrayal of stuttering in film.

The clients watched and reflected on scenes from films such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, “My Cousin Vinny” and “A Fish Called Wanda”.

One scene from “The Right Stuff” (1993) showed Lyndon B. Johnson sitting outside U.S. astronaut John Glenn’s house. While training at NASA, John received a call from his wife, Annie, who let her husband know LBJ demanded entrance into their home to speak with her on national television.

Annie did not accept then-Vice President Johnson’s forced interview with her. John listened to Annie, immediately supporting her.

Annie, who passed away at 100 in 2020, was a person who stutters. Notably, she served as an advocate for other people who stutter and people with disabilities throughout her life.

The scene with Annie resonated with CST clients and clinicians alike. The difference between Will and everyone else in the room?

“I have had the fortune of meeting Annie,” Will told the group with a smile.

Annie Glenn, right, and her husband John, left, at Cape Canaveral in 1962. (Photo Source: The New York Times)

Annie, the wife of the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, was consistently in the public eye throughout her life. Not letting her stutter affect her relationships and selfless personality, she was always amicable with everyone she crossed paths with.

“Annie smiled all the time, and she was a very easy person to talk to,” Will says. “She had the gift where you could shift gears from lightly chatting about the party, the weather, sports or history into talking about a serious topic like stuttering therapy or difficult hard times in childhood. 

“She’d see and hear you, and then you are back talking about something else in a matter of seconds.”

Will met Annie in 1973, just one year before John began his first of four terms as a U.S. Senator from Ohio.

Will and Annie attended consecutive reunions in 1973 and 1974 for participants of an innovative and intensive speech therapy program developed by Dr. Ronald Webster at Hollins College (now Hollins University) in Roanoke, Virginia.

Seeking to address her stuttering, Annie enrolled in the three-week program in her 50s. Will recalls participants ranging from 7 to 80 years old.

“I was told by another reunion guest that she’s the most personable person you’d ever want to hang out with. Then when I met Annie, I immediately saw she had people skills like few people I know.”

For Will, attending the program — let alone meeting Annie — happened by ‘total chance’. One of his neighbors in his hometown of Fairfax, Virginia, brought his family a Roanoke newspaper clipping about the program well before it received significant attention.

He attended the program a few months later as a 16-year-old.

“When I went to the reunion years later (during college), a funny thing I remember — there was always kind of a happy hour or get-together with pleasantries and drinks. The college provided us with an ordinary brand of beer. Beforehand, I bought my own six pack of beer that I shared with Annie, and she was appreciative.

“I do remember the brand — Heineken,” Will says.

Will recalls his initial conversation with Annie, not knowing who she was at first.

“We’d been chatting for a few minutes when she says, ‘I’m Annie’ and I say back ‘I’m Will’. It helped that my father was also in the space program. He was an optical physicist. We don’t think he and John Glenn ever met, but my father worked in the same space program, on the same spacecraft with a lot of other people involved.”

“When I met Annie, I immediately saw she had people skills like few people I know,” longtime CST client Will Koomen says. (Photo courtesy of Will Koomen)

Like the Hollins College program, the Center for Stuttering Therapy has also benefited Will. As a CST group client for more than 20 years, Will keeps coming back to Boston University every semester for the focus and enthusiasm the group provides.

“I’ve always had a hard time hanging on to any kind of fluency skill. The group’s weekly reinforcement makes an enormous difference on my quality of life. Most of my life I was debilitated by my avoidance behavior, but now, I go out and talk to people just for fun. It’s such a part of my behavior now to do things without much thought.”

After Will first met Annie, she continued serving as an advocate for people with speech disorders. Since 1987, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) has presented an annual recipient of the Annie Award, recognizing exceptional people who lead social progress for verbal communication-related matters in the same spirit as Annie.

Notably, BU’s Sargent College, which the CST is located within, hosted former NBA player Michael Kidd-Gilchrist in the Spring of 2024 for a campus visit. A person who stutters himself, Kidd-Gilchrist spoke to students about his nonprofit’s work increasing youth access and insurance coverage for speech therapy.

This year, ASHA named Kidd-Gilchrist the 2024 recipient of the Annie Award for his advocacy and work removing financial barriers to therapy access.

Kidd-Gilchrist joins a prestigious list of advocates who have received the award in Annie’s honor, including the late James Earl Jones (1987), SAY founder Taro Alexander (2019) and “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger (2021).

Annie Glenn with her husband, John Glenn (left), and film director James Cameron (right) in 2013 (Photo Source: Forbes).

The award continues honoring Annie’s legacy and recognizing advocates who change the way communication disorders are viewed and take shape across society.

To Will, Annie left an indelible mark on the stuttering community and cast a positive light on stuttering. 

“Annie is certainly a good role model to involve everybody in the room in the activity,” he says. “Though Annie may have struggled to speak, she retained her smile. She certainly mastered the skill of including and inspiring those around her.”