Favorite Volunteer Hears Just Fine

Ken Landers says he still has a southern accent, even if he’s the only one who can hear it.

Sitting at the on a recent afternoon, a white-haired Landers listens carefully, nodding to questions before he begins to write rapidly on a note pad with a blue pen.

He had a stroke in 2004. He can’t speak, but he wants everyone to know he’s not deaf.

“They assume that,” he writes, sometimes struggling with what to write so he can be understood correctly.

Landers, 53, couldn’t return to his job as a tech support employee because he was on the phone a lot. 

His memory is faulty, and he has trouble walking. But such things haven't stopped the self-proclaimed computer geek from giving back to his community.

On disability, and with some time on his hands, he has been volunteering for Keep Powder Springs Beautiful since 2007, and Keep Cobb Beautiful since 2000.

On most days, you’ll find Landers somewhere around town cleaning up the roads and removing signs and debris from city property.

But his favorite pastime is riding along the Silver Comet Trail on his yellow three-wheeled bicycle, “Weeble.”

“It don’t fall down,” he writes, mimicking the popular jingle.

Landers has a big box on the back of the bike to put the trash he collects, and he enjoys meeting people while he's out and about.

For all of his efforts, Landers was recently named Powder Springs' Volunteer of the Year. The city suprised him with the award at a recent volunteer dinner.

He got a plaque and people took lots of pictures, he mimes by holding his hand in the air and pressing a make-believe button.

He’s not big on being the center of attention, he demonstrates with facial expressions and a wrinkled-up nose.

He tries to mime what he can, because it’s easier than writing it all down. He holds two fingers up on either side of his head to show he has a brother and a sister. 

Landers grew up in Smyrna and went to work after high school. He writes that he started college but then got a job.

He likes the people who he volunteers with, writing that they are good folks who “really want to make a difference in the city.”

He was very sad and emotional after the stroke, and things have been very difficult, he writes. He misses going to work.

No more drive-thrus, he adds to lighten the mood.

It’s also hard to jump into conversations, he writes then waves his notepad mocking himself trying to jump in.

He can make some sounds, and friends and family can understand him. But he tries not to talk because he just ends up writing anyway.

He’s seen three speech therapists, and none of them could help him.

I gave up, he scrawls.

When Landers is at home, he can’t answer the phone, but he has a machine that speaks what he types. He takes it with him a lot.

But not today. He forgot it because he was in a hurry.

He used to use his Palm Pilot to communicate with people, but it’s all messed up, he writes and then tries to show me.

Looks to be working just fine.

Now it works, he writes laughing.

But we’re focusing too much on him.

So many volunteers do so much more than me, he writes.