Russell Harvard

Born in Pasadena, Texas, into a third-generation deaf family, Harvard is the younger of two deaf sons of Kay (Youngblood) and Henry Harvard. Both his parents and his paternal grandmother are also deaf. In the early 1980s, the Harvards moved to Austin, Texas so that their elder son Renny could enroll at their alma mater, Texas School for the Deaf (TSD). The family initially placed Russell (due to his speech capability and residual hearing) in an oral school for children who learn to lip read exclusively. Finding he was unhappy there, his parents switched him to a deaf school education at TSD, which included training in lip reading and speech therapy in English. Although he is able to hear some sound with the use of a hearing aid, including speech and music, he identifies himself as deaf and considers American Sign Language to be his first language.\n', '

After graduating from TSD in 1999…