At first, Lanier (also known as "Queen Rebecca") said nothing. When William Austin, Starkey's founder and chief executive, peered in her ears, she sat with her jaw set and her hands folded. It was only after Austin slipped two tiny hearing devices into her ear canal that Lanier spoke.

"Rebecca, can you hear me?" Austin asked.

"Yeah!" she replied.

"Do you like the way you're hearing now?" Austin said.

Rebecca Lanier gets a hearing aid.Renee JonesStar Tribune"Yeah! I like that," she answered.

It was all in a day's work for Austin. Known as the "Santa Claus of Hearing," Austin has transformed his privately held company's success and personal wealth into a global charitable effort to fix the "broken ears" of the world.

Minutes before Lanier was fitted, Austin inserted a hearing device into Beverly Huff, a 6-year-old Filipino girl who is profoundly deaf.

His Starkey Hearing Foundation, started in 1973, donates 20,000 hearing aids to the needy annually on self-financed missions throughout the Third World. In a few weeks, Austin will travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, to fit 760 impoverished children with hearing devices.

"Hearing is the umbilical cord to the world," Austin said. "The ear is the roadway to the heart."

Lanier's hearing began to deteriorate in the late 1990s, according to her grandson and caretaker, Jimmie Shambley. Otherwise, she is remarkably robust, eating three square meals a day, and harboring a penchant for root beer and collard greens. She never drank alcohol or smoked -- and that's about the extent of her secret to longevity.

Lanier isn't the oldest person in the world -- that title goes to Hendrikje Van Andel, 114, of the Netherlands, according to the Gerontology Research Group. Shambley said his grandmother doesn't have a birth certificate to authenticate her age, just a written notation in a family Bible.

"They didn't have birth certificates in Mississippi back then," he explained.

Lanier moved to Alabama, where her family sharecropped and farmed for most of her life. She had two daughters who preceded her in death, seven grandchildren and "about" 30 great-grandchildren.

When told the Foundation was interested in flying her to Minnesota for free hearing devices, (worth a total of $10,800, a fee typically not reimbursed by Medicare or insurance payers), Lanier was initially skeptical.

But Shambley and his wife ultimately persuaded her. Although hearing loss is not limited to the elderly, aging is to blame in about 40 percent of cases, said Sergei Kochkin, executive director of the Better Hearing Institute.

"The majority of people with hearing loss, it's so gradual over time, they adjust," he said. "Family members adjust, so they may not be aware of the impact it has on their life."

Officials at Starkey expect Lanier to regain about 80 to 90 percent of her hearing, especially if she's in a fairly quiet area where there's not a lot of background noise.

Shambley said one of the first things his grandmother will probably do upon returning to Cleveland is tune in her favorite show, "Texas Justice."

"She likes that Judge Larry Joe," he said.

"She was so isolated before," Austin said. "You're isolated if you can't hear, you're disconnected from the world."

Thursday's press conference proved Lanier is still very much connected to the world. As the event wrapped up, she warned a photographer -- with a twinkle in her eye -- "You better get those pictures right."

By Janet Moore