Star Tribune
Annandale sisters, both born deaf, defy expectations in latest feat
ST. AUGUSTA, MINN. – Abigail Voigt was born to talk.
On a recent weekday afternoon, the 11-year-old was chattering about how gymnastics is her favorite sport, grumbling about not being able to go on a promised trip to the Bahamas (more to come on that), and explaining how a cochlear implant device connects to her head.
But for the first three years of her life, Abigail wasn’t able to communicate vocally.
“Before she really had words, she would be very theatrical. She would try so hard to tell me what she was thinking and it would frustrate her,” said Stacy Voigt, Abigail’s mom.
Abigail was born five weeks early and failed the newborn hearing test, which isn’t uncommon for premature infants. But she continued to fail hearing tests and was soon diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss — a surprise to parents Stacy and Jeremy because they had no family history of congenital hearing loss.
“As a new parent, it was pretty nerve-wracking and terrifying,” Jeremy said. “You don’t know what the future holds.”
The St. Augusta parents, now 37, learned they both have a recessive gene called “connexin-26? that can cause hearing loss. Because of that, there was a 25% chance their child would be born with hearing impairment. And it happened twice: the Voigt’s second daughter, Zoey, now 10, was also born with profound hearing loss.
Like her older sister, Zoey can be a chatterbox but is a bit more shy, both with classmates and a reporter visiting on a recent weekday afternoon. She instead was more interested in playing outside with the neighbors.
After the girls were diagnosed with hearing loss, the Voigts spent several thousand dollars on hearing aids while battling the insurance company to cover cochlear implants, which are devices that transform sound into electrical signals in the brain. A magnet is implanted under the skin behind the ear, which then connects to a device that picks up sound and converts it into signals that get sent to the auditory nerve.
“You kind of have to prove to the insurance that they truly are deaf and can’t hear anything,” Stacy said. “As a baby, that’s very difficult. It’s difficult for the parent. It’s difficult for the audiologist. So that takes time.”
But time wasn’t on their side. Abigail was so far behind in language development, the audiologist said she might not ever catch up.
“At 2-1/2 years of age, she had maybe 20 words, if that,” Stacy said. “That’s a huge concern.”
After Stacy changed jobs and got new insurance, the girls finally qualified for implants. They had their surgeries on the same day in May 2015 — their “hearing birthday,” as the Voigts call it. A few weeks later, the audiologist turned on the devices for the first time and tried to get their attention by saying “Bop bop bop bop.”
“They both just turned — and it was such a quick turn,” Stacy said. “They had never done that before.”
The surgeries were just the first step of their journey. The girls attended a special school in Roseville for children with hearing loss and attended speech therapy twice a week for seven years. They also were eventually fitted for cochlear implants in their other ears.
And this year, the girls are finally catching up to their peers in terms of language and communication. Abigail, in fifth grade at Annandale Elementary School, is proud to say she’s reading at a sixth-grade level.
The girls recently eclipsed another goal: They used their experiences with cochlear implants to dream up improvements to the device, beating out more than 250 children from across the globe in a contest organized by implant company Med-El.
The girls learned they were winners in late February when a representative from the company visited their classrooms to surprise them — as well as their classmates, some of whom didn’t even know they have cochlear implants.
The prize is a trip to the company’s headquarters in Austria this June. In need of passports but not wanting to spoil the surprise, their parents said they were going to the Bahamas (hence Abigail’s disappointment, though Stacy promised that trip will come.)
The girls’ contest submission outlined three improvements to their cochlear implants: setting an alarm with an app on a smartwatch that would “ring” using the processing device; playing music through the processors via Bluetooth; and seeing the processor’s battery life in real time.
Abigail said the device’s short battery life — about 18 hours — makes her anxious because if she’s somewhere without extra batteries and the device runs out of juice, her world goes quiet.
Since the announcement, both Abigail and Zoey have shown a newfound confidence, their parents say.
“This contest has opened them up to feeling like, ‘I might be a little different but I’m pretty cool, too,'” Jeremy said. “It’s opened up their eyes and proves all the work they’ve put in their whole life — all the speech therapy and appointments — is worth it. This is the light at the end of the tunnel.”
The only debate between DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP challenger Royce White started Sunday on the street outside WCCO Radio.
As White approached the building, he loudly called some two dozen flag-waving and cheering Klobuchar supporters a “whole lot of commies.” The 33-year-old provocateur and podcaster also told them to thank Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — because there was “no chance in hell” that Harris would defeat Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Klobuchar, 64, had arrived moments earlier, smiling and wishing “good morning” to her supporters. Once inside, the two took questions for an hour from moderator Blois Olson. Their tone was generally polite with White often interrupting a Klobuchar response with, “rebuttal,” indicated he wanted to respond.
The senator repeatedly raised White’s claims on X, formerly Twitter, that “The bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no good guys in that war.” She called that stance offensive to veterans.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at WCCO Radio for a debate with Royce White in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 27. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth six-year term, portrayed herself as a pragmatist. She opened by saying that we live in “incredibly divisive times politically” but that she has listened and worked with Republicans to bring down shipping costs, drug prices for seniors and to help veterans and push for more housing and child care.
“Courage in this next few years is not going to be standing by yourself yelling at people,” she said, her opening allusion to White’s rhetoric, which she said is often vulgar.
White, a former NBA player, is a political novice, but a close ally of Steve Bannon, the jailed former chief strategist for Trump and right wing media executive. Last summer, White won the state GOP endorsement to run against Klobuchar.
“Our country’s coming undone at the seams. I think we can change that,” White said in his opening statement. He said he threatens the status quo, decried the “permanent political class” and referred to the two major parties as the “uniparty.”
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
Some take him up on it and fret when he’s not around.
“It is nice to be missed and be part of the school’s culture,” Arzola said. But mostly, he added, he wants kids to know that police aren’t around just for when the bad stuff happens. He’ll hand out his stickers and bracelets, even a trading card bearing his image. Then, they’ll talk about dogs and family.
School resource officer Al Arzola talks to students in his office at John Adams Middle School in Rochester on Oct. 11. (Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Two months ago, Rochester played host to a three-day training session for new SROs from across the state — an event organized by the Minnesota School Safety Center. On the final day, the 26 officers learned about surveillance challenges at the other school where Arzola works: Dakota Middle School.
It is a beautiful building with a scenic view. There is a lot of glass, too. Arzola, handling the role of instructor and tour guide, took the group outside and noted how one could look straight through the entrance to the large groups that gather inside. There were no curbs in front, either.
“There is nothing stopping any vehicle whatsoever from going through my front doors,” Arzola told the officers. “Law enforcement wasn’t talked to before this building was made. It was kind of like, ‘Here it is. You’re the SRO. Do what you do.’”
He showed them his office, too, which is separate from the main office and near those of other school support staff members. That makes sense, said Jenny Larrive, SRO coordinator for the Minnesota School Safety Center, given than SROs spend more time connecting with youth than on actual law enforcement.
