Ferrigno swore to uphold and preserve public safety and to serve the community of Los Angeles. His duty includes some four hundred hours of intensive training in firearms, CPR/First Aid, and high speed defensive driving techniques – another skill to add to his Hollywood resume – and a commitment to hours every month of active service. And all for the budget busting salary of exactly one U.S. dollar a year.

“This isn’t about the money. It’s about giving back to the community that has helped me realize my dreams. It’s for my father,” relates the new deputy.

Lou Ferrigno grew up in Brooklyn, where his father served as a Chief Lieutenant for the New York Police Department, Brooklyn division. “I always wanted to follow my Dad into law enforcement,” he says.

But an early childhood ear infection left him nearly totally deaf and unable to meet the hearing requirements for active police duty. However, it was this same challenge that drove him to train as a champion bodybuilder. Beginning at age twelve, Ferrigno threw himself into a single-minded regime that brought him, within nine years, to a Mr. Universe title – the youngest in the sport’s history. He followed it up with another win the next year – a consecutive title record that remains to this day. In the documentary “Pumping Iron”, made at the time of the first competition, Ferrigno is famously taunted by a more seasoned competitive pro – Arnold Schwartzenegger. “He was my competition, yeah,” says Ferrigno. “But I worshiped him.”

Hollywood came running. A good looking, hunky champion? Within six months, proposals had already been proffered for starring roles, tailored to Ferrigno’s physical prowess. The challenge was in his speech limitations created by his hearing disability.

“Lou worked for years with a speech therapist,” says Carla Ferrigno, his wife of twenty seven years. “And he overcame incredible difficulties.” Carla herself has worn many hats, including managing her husband’s rocketing career for twenty six of those years (and, now, their daughter’s burgeoning career as an actress). Their partnership has been propitious: “The Incredible Hulk” television series was a huge cult success in the late seventies and Ferrigno continued to perform in film, on stage across the country and in a further documentary about his comeback to bodybuilding, after a seventeen year retirement, in 1994, when he won the Masters Olympia title.

Over the years, increasingly sophisticated hearing devices were developed, aiding Ferrigno’s speech capabilities further, as his capacity to “hear” and translate sound to the brain improved. Bill Austin, founder of the internationally known Starkey Foundation, was instrumental to enhancing the quality of Ferrigno’s auditory powers, having provided him with top-of-the-technology hearing devices, implanted directly in the ear canal.

The Starkey Foundation is a charitable trust that sends missions all over the globe to provide hearing devices for those who may otherwise never hear the world around them. From South America to Africa to the Ukraine, they work with the citizens of third world economies and have never refused anyone help. Indeed, their website is titled sotheworldmayhear.com and this Herculean effort seems to describe Austin’s goal.

“We have provided over 65,000 hearing devices to people who never heard their children’s voices or who would have lost their jobs due to their deafness. No one is turned away because of his financial inability to pay. We never say ‘No’.” Every hearing aid the Foundation provides is made possible through private donations and Austin’s objective is to eradicate deafness as a practical and social stigma. “Bill Austin should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” declares Ferrigno. “Not only does he give the gift of hearing, he devotes all his time and energies for free.”

Austin reminds one that hearing truly is a gift, not to be taken for granted. “Hearing should not be neglected,” he says, “Modern society is loud and we further aggravate ear damage with ear plug-type music devices that give no cushion to our ear drums, like with kids listening to their iPods.” Austin also acknowledges that many vets returning from Iraq arrive with irreparable ear damage. “Exploding ordnance, road side bombs, helicopters… this will affect their hearing for life.” Not if he and the Starkey Foundation can help it.

Bill Austin’s benevolent energy is reflected in Lou Ferrigno’s goals with his work in the Sheriff’s Department. He says, “Bill taught me a lot about overcoming fears and maximizing my life’s momentum.” Ferrigno’s celebrity alone could be used to benefit the Sheriff’s Department, but he is taking his duties seriously. Not only will he act as spokesman for the Department, he will be instrumental in recruiting new volunteers, in organizing the Youth Activities League and helping in the Special Victims’ Bureau, which works with abused children. He is a huge admirer of Sheriff Lee Baca, believing him to be “the best Sheriff in the country.”

Ferrigno’s new duties will not require him to withdraw completely from an on-going successful career in entertainment. He is a series regular on CBS’ hit show “King of Queens” (along with wife Carla) as well as having other film projects in the works. Will his loaded schedule prevent him from further career moves? For example, will his driving personality allow him to consider career paths not unlike those of another famous bodybuilder, such as Politics? He demurs. “No, my focus is on law enforcement right now.” He pauses. “But, you never know. I can’t say ‘no’ to what I feel is important!”

By Melonie Magruder
http://www.canyon-news.com/artman/publish/article_4106.php

Followup: http://www.4hearingloss.com/archives/2006/02/lou_ferrigno_be.html