Interpreter governor’s right hand

It’s 1:30 p.m. on April 29 and Gov. Asa Hutchinson is where he usually is around this time — at the state Capitol giving his daily press briefing on the state’s coronavirus status.

To his right, as he has been on most days since Hutchinson’s first coronavirus news conference on Feb. 28, is Eddie Schmeckenbecher, interpreting the words of the governor, Arkansas Secretary of Health Nate Smith, other officials and reporters into sign language for the deaf.

A few hours before the briefing, Schmeckenbecher talks about his role as the state’s most high-profile American Sign Language interpreter.

“It’s not about me,” the Little Rock native says.

“It can be any certified interpreter. I just happened to be there before the pandemic started. I just want to be clear and let [deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers] understand what’s going on.”

Schmeckenbecher, 62, was a sophomore in high school when he became interested in sign language through the deaf ministry at his church, Temple Heritage Baptist.

“I always thought it was fascinating to watch the interpreter,” he says. “They had a class on Sunday night, and I started taking it in September. By December, I was interpreting songs. A year later, I was interpreting the sermons.”

He was also buddies with a student at the Arkansas School for the Deaf.

“He started coming over to the house, and we became real good friends,” he says. “That helped me probably more than anything, having to communicate with somebody.”

Schmeckenbecher is the communications specialist at the School for the Deaf. The school’s superintendent, Janet Dickinson, recommended him to be the governor’s interpreter, and he’s been at it for about two years.

For deaf and hard-of-hearing television viewers, sign language is different from closed captioning.

“Closed captioning is awesome,” he says, but words can get garbled and accents aren’t picked up.

And American Sign Language resembles Spanish or French more than English, he says.

“If you said, ‘I painted the house red yesterday,’ I would start off with, ‘Yesterday,’ and then get to the major point, so I would sign, ‘Yesterday house me paint red.’”

And, yes, he often signs with those who aren’t deaf, like his wife of 30 years, Melissa.

Hutchinson, Schmeckenbecher says, isn’t hard to interpret.

“He doesn’t talk real fast. He talks very clear, very directly.”

Speedy-talkers can be a challenge, “but I cut my teeth on an independent Baptist preacher,” he says with a laugh.

The School for the Deaf is closed for now, but Schmeckenbecher plans to teach beginning American Sign Language courses in the summer and fall that are open to the public if social distancing rules allow. Contact him at eddies@asd.k12.ar.us for details.