Faces of Newberry

Morris lends voice to deaf through his art, which will be on display Friday at the Firehouse Art Gallery

Newberry's Doug Morris, an American Sign Language Interpreter, also communicates thWhen Doug Morris was little, he was put in special education classes to improve his reading.

As it turned out, those classes introduced him to the field he has been working in for 18 years.

Morris is an American Sign Language interpreter for the deaf and the Center for Independent Living.

He was asked to start working as an interpreter after his close friend Sidney Arnold, who was an interpreter, passed away. While on a boat off the coast of Maine, Gayle Muller asked him to consider the profession.

Morris explained, “My friend knew I could sign and she sat down next to me and asked, ‘How would you like to make a lot less money?’.”

Morris had been a part of the corporate world as a display manager for Filenes, a department store which has since gone out of business. He said there is one big difference between the corporate and non-profit world.

“When you serve your community you know that what you do really matters at the end of the day,” Morris said.

Because it is a fairly recent language, his deaf grandmother, school friends with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy, and hearing impairments were not taught the language when Morris was growing up.

“Now you can study it, just like French or German or any other language,” Morris said.

Instead, they had to rely on gestures and get across what they could verbally.

“When I heard about the signing I got interested in it,” he said. “I felt like they missed out.”

Morris remembers two Vietnamese students he taught while in San Francisco. They had no verbal skills, but he was able to help them and they were able to gain American citizenship.

One day Morris passed the male Vietnamese student on the stairs and signed to him, asking what he was doing. The boy signed “coat,” his first word after six months, Morris said.

“I call it my spiritual paycheck,” he said.

Being an interpreter has brought Morrris many opportunities. He was recently on National Public Radio, interpreting the phone calls for deaf children’s writer Ann LaZotte.

“You didn’t hear me, but I was in the room signing the listeners’ questions for her to answer,” he said.

He admits his friend was right when she offered a job for less money, but he still enjoys what he does.

“I’ll never be a rich man, but I really like that feeling of serving your community,” he said.

In addition to his work as an interpreter, Morris is a professional artist. He is an art consultant for Newberry’s Firehouse Art Gallery, which will hold an art show on Friday. His work will be featured along with other local artists.

“It’s going to be great,” he said.

Barbara Hendrix, Main Street Organization manager, agreed and added that she cannot wait for the art studio that will complement the gallery and see Morris as an art instructor there.

“We’re really excited about that,” she said. “He has owned art galleries and taught art along with all his work with disabled people. It’s great to have him working with us.”