How can we help you?

CLC Spotlight

Meet one of CLC’s interpreters or translators and hear about the unique role they play in supporting our mission.

Sandie Busby

Sandie’s journey into Sign Language started early because she has Deaf grandparents and a Deaf uncle. Her father was military and the family lived in countries such as Germany and Korea so she was exposed to other languages at an early age.

Most of her career was spent in Oklahoma. After seeing two contestants in the Miss Deaf Oklahoma in Mid1980s get disqualified because of inaccurate voicing by the interpreters, she was determined to make access more equal and decided to pursue the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf certification process. She has been interpreting for the Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Deaf Blind ever since.

After witnessing that many Human Resource departments were not very open to allowing equal access to clients who were Deaf, she received her BA degree in HR and worked to help get D/HH people employed and worked with many businesses to get into legal compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Sandie has a MA degree in curriculum development and started an ASL program at Oklahoma State University. She established a variety of interpreter training classes and recruited and trained several Deaf students who later became instructors themselves.

Sandie has studied medically related signs under Deaf doctors and providers to become better qualified in the medical field . About the same time she had also noticed a lack of equal access in the judicial system, so went back to school a get her law degree. She used her knowledge to ensure courts are accessible with qualified interpreters and worked with the Oklahoma Supreme Court to establish certification qualifications for language providers with all languages including tribal languages.

She has worked with the National Congress of American Indians to set up tele-health and transportation from the reservations to clinics. Now more Deaf/HH Native Americans have access to culturally sensitive interpreters in their preferred language.

While working at OK State University, she took her students on trips to Europe to meet Deaf survivors of World War II, some from the concentration camps, to learn their stories. She has met Deaf people from around the world so has learned a lot of international sign language and is able to communicate that way. Sandie has learned more about atypical Sign Language and uses these skills often in some of her interpreting assignments. She thinks this has been a blessing to be able to be exposed to so many different languages and cultures and be able to utilize her “Deaf Heart” while I’m interpreting for clients today. Having a “Deaf Heart” means respecting the Deaf/HH consumers’ language and culture, focusing on their communication needs, and doing whatever it takes to ensure their interactions are linguistically and culturally equivalent. This equates to communication justice!

Need help enabling interpretation on Zoom?