Recipient Spotlight | Hearing the elders
Naomi Hixson received her Chahta Foundation scholarship in 2014 and is a speech-language pathologist, and also will soon be a certified audiologist.
Naomi Hixson can still hear the voice of her Choctaw grandmother, Dorothy Fae Jefferson. “She instilled in me a passion to help those in need, while also empowering me to reach for the moon,” says Hixson, who is currently pursuing her doctorate in audiology at Arizona State University. When she finishes her education, she will hold dual certification in audiology and speech-language pathology, representing less than one percent of people in her profession. Hixson has served children and adults with hearing impairment at clinics and an Indian Medical Center in Arizona, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing science from Arizona State University, on humanitarian trips to sub-Saharan Africa, and in her native Oklahoma City. While earning her Master’s degree in speech-language pathology at Northwestern University in Illinois, she worked with children and adults with disorders that affected their speech. Through Naomi’s journey to give people the abilities to listen and to speak, the legacy of her grandmother, an Oklahoma teacher whom Naomi calls “the ultimate example of an influential humanitarian,” has been felt throughout the nation and world.
