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Sue Veres, who has worked as a certified court reporter since 1980, has seen her work escalate from a career to a mission of love as she’s found new ways to use her skills to bring accessibility to the hard-of-hearing and deaf communities.
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Sue Veres works in her home office in Viroqua,Wis., creating closed-captioning for television programs . Dick Riniker photo |
Working from a basement office in her family’s Viroqua home, Veres provides captioning for about a dozen television and Internet broadcasts each week.
By captioning for these programs, Veres believes, she is doing her part to bring much needed information and entertainment to those unable to hear dialogue. But also, she said, it helps teach English to new immigrants.
In recent years, Veres has also used her skills in Computer Assisted Real-time Transcription (CART) to help a hearing impaired University of Wisconsin-
La Crosse student earn his degree and help others with hearing difficulties at various meetings throughout the region.
“God gave me this skill, and I want to use it to the best of my ability,” Veres said. “Every person is put in a place to make a difference. I feel like this is the way I’m supposed to do that.”
A native of Oak Creek, Wis., Veres got her start in the field in 1980. She spent 14 years as a freelance court reporter, first traveling the world taking depositions and later closer to home after getting married and starting a family.
After taking four years off to have children, Veres and her husband, Randy, moved their family to Viroqua in 2001, so she could take a job as a part-time court reporter in La Crosse County.
A few years ago, Veres became certified to do closed captioning and CART work, which has vastly increased her work opportunities.
She now works Monday, Tuesday and every other Wednesday as a court reporter for La Crosse County Circuit Judge Dale Pasell.
The rest of the week, she works from home where she can continue to serve others while being close to her family and their various activities.
“Judge Pasell is a wonderful judge, and I love this aspect of my life, but I also enjoy being able to work out of my home, learn new things and provide a service for people who for so long have been out there on their own,” Veres said.
Veres works as an independent contractor with firms that are hired to provide closed captioning for broadcasts. Each week Veres receives various offers to do one-time programs like a live speech by the King of Saudi Arabia, along with her regulars.
A church service in Florida, a medical call-in show in North Carolina, programming on Wisconsin Public Television and the weekly pre-game show for the Washington State University Cougars football team are some of her regular assignments.
Veres’ home office is equipped with a computer, two phone lines and and the same steno machine she uses in court.
During the programs, Veres gets audio from the television station on one phone line. She captions what she is hearing, which is then sent back to the studio on the second line.
Veres can view what she is captioning on her computer screen and has just two seconds to clear up any errors.
To make sure her captioning is done as planned, Veres keeps back-up equipment that can be put into use at a moment’s notice.
Veres said her most harrowing experience came when she was home alone captioning a Madison Common Council meeting.
In the middle of the program, there was a severe thunderstorm. The family was in the middle of a remodeling project and there were no gutters on the house. As she was captioning, water started pouring into her office. Veres continued her work, stopping briefly from time to time to pull cords up off the floor and move things to keep them from getting wet.
All in all, Veres said, the flexibility is nice, but the feeling she gets from providing a service for others is the best part of the job.
“I’m not just doing this for myself. I feel really honored and blessed to provide this service to people in the deaf and hard-of-hearing community,” Veres said. “I try to get a good product out there to provide accessibility to everyone.”
The Veres File
Name: Sue Veres
Home, Viroqua, Wis.
Family: Husband, Randy, three children, Michael, Lyssa and Evan
Occupation: Part-time court reporter for La Crosse County Circuit Judge Dale Pasell and closed captioning for television programs out of her home, and Computer Assisted Real-time Transcription work for the hard of hearing and deaf throughout the region.
Dan Springer can be reached at dspringer@lacrossetribune.com or (608) 791-8269.
