Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Kota Takamoto plays the violin while rehearsing with members of his band.

Lessons Learned

Three students reflect on what their voices taught them

By Chantal Lamers

For Kenny Follmar, the pomp and circumstance of last Thursday's Saratoga High School graduation ceremony was lost momentarily while his private thoughts drifted to his own voice, a voice that once made him feel different and uncomfortable, while Jennifer Nickel reflected on a voice that remained silent for two long months. Kota Takamoto remembered when his voice communicated through the strings of a violin and the grunts of a tackle on the football field.

Kenny Follmar was born with a speech impediment. His voice, on first impression, suggests that he may have a learning disability. But Kenny, whose pronunciation is awkward, loud and sometimes mistaken as an accent, is far from disabled.

"Now it's easy," Kenny says of making himself understood. "It's like second nature." Kenny says that most everyone is familiar with his impediment. Although he has come to recognize and accept that people often get a mistaken first impression of him because of his voice, it wasn't always easy to accept.

"In elementary school people make fun of you for everything from being fat to wearing glasses," he says.

It wasn't just the speech impediment that caused him embarrassment in elementary school, Kenny recalls. "It was hard leaving my friends in the middle of class [to go to my special-education class for my speech impediment]. I had a little trouble getting used to it."

In high school, what may have been routine for some students left Kenny feeling awkward and frustrated.

When his Spanish teacher, Arnaldo Rodriguez, would randomly ask his students to play aloud their practice conversation tape, for instance, Kenny felt particularly uncomfortable. Rodriguez, though, wouldn't let him wiggle out of that part of the class, no matter how different his voice sounded amplified across the classroom.

"I guess I hate hearing my voice on tape," Kenny says.

After Kenny realized that his teacher didn't do it to embarrass him, he came to respect and understand his teacher's motives.

Kenny's mother, Debbie, says that while he was growing up, it was often difficult for her son, but he never asked for sympathy.

"He has so much empathy for other people," she says.

One of the volunteer programs that Kenny participates in is called Best Buds. Through the program, he adopts a disabled student as a friend, and they do activities together throughout the school year.

Kenny has been awarded the District Teacher Scholarship for his outstanding grade-point average of 4.01 and his dedication to helping other students.

There was a time when Kenny Follmar didn't like the sound of his own voice. But he's been able to replace that dislike with empathy and a commitment to helping others.

Jennifer Nickel

Jennifer Nickel's life took a dramatic turn on Jan. 2, 1995. Until then, Jennifer played sports, worked on the school newspaper and was active in Saratoga Federated Church youth programs.

Then her mother suffered a brain aneurysm, and Jennifer spent two agonizing months wondering if she would ever hear her mother's voice again. "God tells us that he has a plan for us," Jennifer says. "Sometimes God has to go to extreme lengths to get your attention. He got our attention."

The following morning, when her mother underwent a nine-hour surgery, Jennifer had no idea how serious it was. For the next two months her mother lay silent in a coma.

"The hardest part was not hearing her voice," Jennifer recalls.

After six months, Jennifer's mother came home from the hospital.

Melinda Chase, assistant to the youth ministry at Saratoga Federated Church, says that Jennifer has been a great daughter.

"She's really put her mom's needs first. When we have activities at the church, she brings her mom, and she's right there with her the whole time."

Her mother needs attention 24 hours a day, and since her family couldn't afford an in-home nurse, Jennifer, her brother and her father all shared nursing duties.

Jennifer was there to help bathe her mother, do her laundry and make her lunch. When a family member wasn't able to stay at home, Jennifer's mother went to day care or one of her classes at West Valley College.

Jennifer's obligation became her mother. "I'm OK with having to say no," she said, referring to going out with friends. "I'm still really active."

She does feel resentment on occasion. When she had to fill out her college applications by herself, for instance, she found herself frustrated and angry. She didn't want to bother her mother, and her father had no time.

"It's hard seeing how other people take their family for granted, how much their parents do for them. You don't know what you have until it's gone."

But she completed her college applications and was accepted at Biola University in Southern California.

"My dad and I decided it would be the best choice to go away," Jennifer says. Now, her family is working on making her mother more independent while they increase her therapy.

"I've matured a lot; I'm walking away from high school with more than I ever thought I would."

Kota Takamoto

Kota Takamoto, who moved here from Japan four years ago, remembers when his English was awkward, but he felt in command playing music and running down the football field. "Music and sports have been really big for me since I've been here. They kind of took over as my second voice."

When his father accepted a job in the United States, Kota was offered the option of staying in Japan with his sister. He chose to come here for one reason: football.

"I watched football in Japan," Kota says, adding that he never had the opportunity to play there.

"I didn't know what to expect," he said. "The first couple of years were really hard because I'd always been so talkative and outgoing. I felt so alone," Kota says, despite his circle of supportive friends.

"It was frustrating not being able to communicate as well as I wanted to."

Edy Cheadle, who teaches English as a second language, was Kota's teacher when he arrived in the United States. Cheadle said that although the process was frustrating for him, he didn't show it.

"He has been a remarkable person," she said. "He made it on two major sports teams while learning the language and at the same time keeping his [grade-point] average up."

As an escape from the language barrier, Takamoto got heavily involved in sports and in playing his violin.

"I came to practice the day before the first scrimmage. I was nervous, I didn't know what to do, and they didn't know what to do with me," Kota says.

One of Kota's friends, who was also on the team, spoke Japanese and translated what the coach said for him.

On the field, he no longer felt out of place. He didn't have to speak on the football field; he could throw, run and catch just like everyone else.

Kota's father, Nobuo, was particularly pleased with his son's choice to play football. "Football is really an American experience," he says.

The following spring, Kota made the baseball team too. Unlike football, baseball is wildly popular in Japan, and Kota began playing when he was 6.

Sports weren't the only comfortable means of communicating for Kota. Since the age of 4, he's played the violin, and at SHS he became involved with a band, which recently played for Grad Night. "We haven't decided on a name yet," Kota says. "We're just a bunch of Dave Mathews Band freaks."

In July, Kota returns to Japan and plans to go to a university there. And in his four years here, he's learned he doesn't know enough about his native country. Having now studied the American version of World War II, he is eager to explore the subject further.

"When we signed our yearbooks, everyone wrote that I've changed a lot," Kota says smiling. "It makes me proud."

At the graduation ceremony, the voices of the speakers carried on the tradition of pomp and circumstance. Among the graduates, most couldn't help but reflect on their four years at SHS. For Kenny Follmar, Jennifer Nickel and Kota Takamoto, memories also drifted to a voice that once brought embarrassment, a voice that was stilled and a voice that manifested itself on the football field and with a bow across the strings of a violin.

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