Pat Clickener
“As a child, I was captivated by a line from the movie So Dear to My Heart,” longtime and instrumental HLAA Member Pat Clickener recently recalled, referencing the 1948 Disney film. “‘It’s not what you’ve got, but what you do with what you’ve got.’ I don’t know why that had such an impact on a 7-year-old child, but it became the steering wheel of all that followed. And it was enormously motivating when I started losing my hearing when I was only 17 and starting college.”
As a teenager, Pat was hospitalized for a continued high fever that persisted for days. It was the beginning of a steep downward spiral in her hearing. But the stark reality of it all came crashing down several years later, in 1964, when at the age of 21, she was told by an ENT at Washington University in St. Louis that nothing could ever be done to help her.
It was an especially painful period in Pat’s life—one she prays others will never have to go through. Her profound hearing loss came at a time when there were few—if any—assistive devices. No captions. Near-zero access to educational aids. And virtually no way to connect with others who also had hearing loss.
“It was like being stranded on an island without even a white flag to get anyone’s attention,” Pat remembers. “There was nowhere to turn for help.”
That painful isolation, Pat says, gave her the opportunity to grow in compassion and gain perspective. And it strengthened her belief that we’re each meant to use our unique talents, skills and abilities to make a difference in the world.
Pat enjoys a view of Chicago
“It’s what propelled me in my work with HLAA—then called SHHH—in the early 1980s, when I chose to leave my executive-level job at a major ad agency in Chicago and go work with what was then a fledgling nonprofit,” Pat explained, referencing the two years when she worked in the National Office near Washington, DC, with HLAA Founder Rocky Stone to get the association off the ground. “It was a now-or-never situation. The very young and very small organization would either catch hold, or it would disappear. Rocky needed help. And so, I went as a full-time staff volunteer—along with Joan Kleinrock and Carol Lingley.”
