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Oroville's own
Oroville's Own: Bobbie Holcraft has a passion for signing
By KYRA GOTTESMAN - Special to the Mercury-Register
Posted: 09/27/2009 09:04:06 PM PDT
Bobbie Holcraft, an American Sign Language instructor and interpreter, teaches signing classes to...
OROVILLE -- The only time Bobbie Holcraft, an American Sign Language instructor and interpreter, stops talking is when she's asleep.
"I never shut up. I'm a mouthy person. If someone gagged me and, oh my gosh, bound my hands, I think I'd die," she said, laughing. "Just ask my family and friends. I talk all the time with my mouth and my hands. I love to talk."
Holcraft said her career as an ASL interpreter and instructor was a fortunate accident. She married her high school sweetheart in 1983, the year before she graduated from Las Plumas High School, and soon thereafter became pregnant.
"I had a baby on the way and I needed to put dinner on the table," she recalled. "So I did what people do who are looking for a job: I looked in the want ads in the newspaper."
It was in there that Holcraft saw a job listing for someone to work with the deaf through the Feather River Opportunity Center. The requirements included being able to speak ASL, something she didn't know how to do. So that night, Holcraft went to the library and checked out a how-to book on sign language and spent the rest of the night cramming as if she had the biggest final exam of her life the next day.
"I taught myself all I could from that book that night and went in the next day for the interview. And, I got the job," she said.
Knowing that she was nowhere near fluent enough in ASL to be as effective in her new job as she wanted to be, she said she was lucky that her first deaf clients in her new
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job were patient, had good senses of humor and were willing to teach her. She also enrolled in night classes at Oroville Adult School. After that, she says, she was hooked.
"I just couldn't get enough. I took classes at Butte College, at American River College and I took workshops all over the state earning multiple certificates," she said. "It became more than a job or a vocation or career. It became my passion."
Holcraft earned designations that allow her to interpret for the courts, all law enforcement agencies, the District Attorney's Office, hospitals, private doctors, dentists and other health practitioners and educational institutions.
Three days a week she interprets classes, including algebra and engineering, for deaf students at Butte College and two days a week she interprets for the county in the jails or courts. She's on call 24/7 for local hospitals and law enforcement.
"I've gotten to do so many interesting things, from funerals to weddings to concerts. In May I interpreted my first autopsy. It was fascinating. I was totally enthralled," she said.
When she's not working as an interpreter, Holcraft is volunteering as one. For the past nine years she has worked as an interpreter at both the Silver Dollar and Butte County fairs and traveled to Vallejo to the annual Deaf Awareness Day at Six Flags Great America.
"It's such an honor for me to do this. A lot of times the deaf don't go to events, like the fair, because for them it's like, well, it would be like me going to a foreign country and not knowing the language. But, if they know an interpreter is going to be at an event like the fair, they can come and really enjoy themselves," she said.
While Holcraft loves interpreting, she equally enjoys teaching ASL. Both her grown daughters sign fluently, as do her two 5-year-old granddaughters, her parents, sister, nieces, nephews, ex-husband and boyfriend.
She has also taught many non-family members to sign through her ASL class offered to the public on Monday evenings through the Greater Oroville Family Resource Center. One class just graduated and the next session of classes starts Oct. 5.
"It's a blast. And, I love to see what my students go on to do," said Holcraft. "I have one who is now teaching ASL at Shasta College and one who is teaching ASL in Europe. It's like I plant this little seed thorough my teaching and watch them grow. And, it's really not that difficult. So many of the signs are iconic, just common sense, because the sign is the motion you'd use for the action."
While her interpreting and teaching have opened doors into whole new worlds for both the hearing and hearing impaired, Holcraft says it's the work she did with a friend's autistic daughter that locked her into her work for life.
Wanting to help her friend but concerned about how successful she'd be, Holcraft began working with the child at her dad's request. Within 30 days, the 6-year-old who had never spoken or eaten solid food ate her first meal and was signing basic words including "dad," "please," "thank you," "bathroom," "food" and "eat."
The little girl is 9 years old now and Holcraft says she is "just as beautiful and precious as can be signing away."
"When she learned to sign, she could communicate and it opened the world to her," said Holcraft. "When I learned to sign, it opened up a whole new world to me — the world of the deaf. And it is such a warm and welcoming place. I am so appreciative and grateful to be a part of it."
Oroville's Own: Bobbie Holcraft has a passion for signing
By KYRA GOTTESMAN - Special to the Mercury-Register
Posted: 09/27/2009 09:04:06 PM PDT
Bobbie Holcraft, an American Sign Language instructor and interpreter, teaches signing classes to...
OROVILLE -- The only time Bobbie Holcraft, an American Sign Language instructor and interpreter, stops talking is when she's asleep.
"I never shut up. I'm a mouthy person. If someone gagged me and, oh my gosh, bound my hands, I think I'd die," she said, laughing. "Just ask my family and friends. I talk all the time with my mouth and my hands. I love to talk."
Holcraft said her career as an ASL interpreter and instructor was a fortunate accident. She married her high school sweetheart in 1983, the year before she graduated from Las Plumas High School, and soon thereafter became pregnant.
"I had a baby on the way and I needed to put dinner on the table," she recalled. "So I did what people do who are looking for a job: I looked in the want ads in the newspaper."
It was in there that Holcraft saw a job listing for someone to work with the deaf through the Feather River Opportunity Center. The requirements included being able to speak ASL, something she didn't know how to do. So that night, Holcraft went to the library and checked out a how-to book on sign language and spent the rest of the night cramming as if she had the biggest final exam of her life the next day.
"I taught myself all I could from that book that night and went in the next day for the interview. And, I got the job," she said.
Knowing that she was nowhere near fluent enough in ASL to be as effective in her new job as she wanted to be, she said she was lucky that her first deaf clients in her new
Advertisement
job were patient, had good senses of humor and were willing to teach her. She also enrolled in night classes at Oroville Adult School. After that, she says, she was hooked.
"I just couldn't get enough. I took classes at Butte College, at American River College and I took workshops all over the state earning multiple certificates," she said. "It became more than a job or a vocation or career. It became my passion."
Holcraft earned designations that allow her to interpret for the courts, all law enforcement agencies, the District Attorney's Office, hospitals, private doctors, dentists and other health practitioners and educational institutions.
Three days a week she interprets classes, including algebra and engineering, for deaf students at Butte College and two days a week she interprets for the county in the jails or courts. She's on call 24/7 for local hospitals and law enforcement.
"I've gotten to do so many interesting things, from funerals to weddings to concerts. In May I interpreted my first autopsy. It was fascinating. I was totally enthralled," she said.
When she's not working as an interpreter, Holcraft is volunteering as one. For the past nine years she has worked as an interpreter at both the Silver Dollar and Butte County fairs and traveled to Vallejo to the annual Deaf Awareness Day at Six Flags Great America.
"It's such an honor for me to do this. A lot of times the deaf don't go to events, like the fair, because for them it's like, well, it would be like me going to a foreign country and not knowing the language. But, if they know an interpreter is going to be at an event like the fair, they can come and really enjoy themselves," she said.
While Holcraft loves interpreting, she equally enjoys teaching ASL. Both her grown daughters sign fluently, as do her two 5-year-old granddaughters, her parents, sister, nieces, nephews, ex-husband and boyfriend.
She has also taught many non-family members to sign through her ASL class offered to the public on Monday evenings through the Greater Oroville Family Resource Center. One class just graduated and the next session of classes starts Oct. 5.
"It's a blast. And, I love to see what my students go on to do," said Holcraft. "I have one who is now teaching ASL at Shasta College and one who is teaching ASL in Europe. It's like I plant this little seed thorough my teaching and watch them grow. And, it's really not that difficult. So many of the signs are iconic, just common sense, because the sign is the motion you'd use for the action."
While her interpreting and teaching have opened doors into whole new worlds for both the hearing and hearing impaired, Holcraft says it's the work she did with a friend's autistic daughter that locked her into her work for life.
Wanting to help her friend but concerned about how successful she'd be, Holcraft began working with the child at her dad's request. Within 30 days, the 6-year-old who had never spoken or eaten solid food ate her first meal and was signing basic words including "dad," "please," "thank you," "bathroom," "food" and "eat."
The little girl is 9 years old now and Holcraft says she is "just as beautiful and precious as can be signing away."
"When she learned to sign, she could communicate and it opened the world to her," said Holcraft. "When I learned to sign, it opened up a whole new world to me — the world of the deaf. And it is such a warm and welcoming place. I am so appreciative and grateful to be a part of it."
