MSU
John Eulenberg, Don Sherman and J. J. Jackson can recall every detail of the day they met 39 years ago .
“It was love at first sight — even though I couldn’t see them,” said Jackson, a blind former Artificial Language Lab scientist, as he reached over to touch Sherman’s arm jokingly.
Dec. 4, 1974, just two weeks after their meeting, Eulenberg and Jackson decided to help Sherman perform a simple task — ordering a pizza via telephone.
Because Sherman has Moebius syndrome, which leaves his face mostly paralyzed, this mundane task was something he had never done before.
Little did they know, the team of now-best friends opened the floodgates for MSU’s speech pathology program that night.
“I think we all feel it was our destiny to work in this area and to remain committed to it,” Jackson said. “We still honor, love and treasure the link we established in 1974.”
The video recording of the event recently went viral, giving the roughly 50,000 viewers a glimpse into the MSU Artificial Language Laboratory’s work to provide voices to those with limited speech.
More than three decades later, the men still get together each year on the anniversary of Sherman’s computer-aided phone call.
Although MSU’s laboratory has since been downsized, MSU still is involved with communicative disorder research.
