Lucy Miller

Born on December 16, 1938, in Hollywood, California, to Isabel and David Sanford. High school honors included Hollywood High School’s first recipient of the American Field Service exchange student scholarship to France, as well as, leadership positions with the Girls Athletic Association. Selected for a fellowship by the National Leadership Training Program in Deafness at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), she earned her M.A. with honors in Special Education Administration and went on to earn her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology through Brigham Young University’s externship program, becoming the first deaf woman to earn a doctorate degree. She was also awarded a peacetime Military Order of the Purple Heart for Outstanding Research in Services to the Handicapped.

Along the way, Lucy married, had and raised two children, Vincent and Rachel.

Lucy was the first deaf person to be hired as a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor for the Deaf in the Sate of California. After serving as a counselor and assistant professor at CSUN, she established a program of support services for deaf students at Pasadena Community College, as well as, created and administered on academic degree program for Special Education paraprofessionals. A pioneer advocate for captioning on television, she co-produced two television programs featuring an all-deaf cast and crew which aired on KCET, Southern California’s local Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) affiliate, earning her an Emmy Award nomination, as well as, a position on KCET’s first Community Advisory Board. She transitioned to private practice as a psychotherapist, and Marriage and Family therapist in Canoga Park, California, for 13 years before moving to Kauai in 1991 with her beloved husband Richard “Dick” Burkhalter.

During her semi-retirement years on Kauai, she continued her private practice part-time, taught ASL at Kauai Community College, and taught Ethics to Kauai’s Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) students as an adjunct professor for Argosy University. Mostly she continued her lifelong passion of advocating for equal access for persons with alternative communication needs. Having grown up long before the passage of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other equal rights legislation, she experienced firsthand the effects of marginalization and of closed doors in many aspects of her life. She served under four governors while on the State of Hawaii’s Disability and Communication Access Board and on the Mayor’s Advisory Committee for Equal Access. She was awarded Kauai’s Outstanding Older American Woman for 2013.

Two pursuits that Dr. Lucy took up during her post-retirement years included participation in Kauai’s Toastmasters Club, where she earned the title Advanced Communicator Silver, and partnering with and training service dogs, a labradoodle named Muffin and a goldendoodle named Coco. She combined these two interests when training various Kauai County groups in ADA service dog laws.

She peacefully passed away on December 6, 2022 in her home at the age of 83. A private celebration of her life was held.

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