[Nfb-or] Terry Hayes Sales

[Renee Squier]

Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 6:14 PM
Subject: Terry Hayes Sales

>
> Terry Hayes Sales, who recorded more than 900 books for blind, dies at 94,
> By Paula Burba.
>
> Terry Hayes Sales, a singer and actress who had recorded more than 900
> books
> for the American Printing House for the Blind, died on Monday at a nursing
> home in Rowley, Mass. She was 94.
> Sales moved to Massachusetts from Louisville in August 2009 to be near her
> son, Michael Sales, who said she died of Alzheimer's disease. In December
> 1988, Sales was inducted into the American Foundation for the Blind's
> Talking Book Hall of Fame, one of two living charter members cited for
> significant achievement in the narration of talking books. Sales had "this
> remarkable ability to tell a story," according to Steve Mullins, studio
> director for the American Printing House for the Blind, where Sales did
> her
> recordings. "She was very charming." With thousands of books recorded, all
> of them staying in circulation for many years, narrators developed
> followers, Mullins said.
> "People, in some ways, grew up with her," he said. Among her work are
> three
> narrations of "Little Women," as well as most
> of the Nancy Drew books.
> The recordings were produced for the National Library Service for the
> Blind
> and Physically Handicapped, a division of the Library of Congress, which
> honored Sales in 1998 for her dedicated service of more than 60 years as a
> narrator.
> Sales likely was the narrator longest affiliated with the American
> Printing
> House for the Blind, Mullins said. She began narrating in 1938,
> just one year after the printing house released its first talking book,
> "Gulliver's Travels." In 2006, though she was no longer a regularly
> scheduled narrator at the printing house, Sales participated in the 75th
> anniversary celebration and marathon recording session of that book with
> 44
> other narrators.
> Mullins said he was almost certain Sales was the only person to have made
> the transition from the earliest recordings made on wax through the era of
> tape and into the current digital age, recording on all mediums.
> Sales was a high school sophomore when she landed her first professional
> gig
> as a staff singer on WBBM radio in her hometown of Chicago. She met
> Louisville native Stuart Sales while he was a student at the University of
> Illinois, their son said, and they married in Chicago when she was 19.
> While her husband later served in the Navy, she did a talk show on WGN in
> Chicago as well as commercials and serial acting before the couple
> returned
> to Louisville.
>
> In Louisville, she continued to sing on radio for both WAVE and WHAS.
> According to her son, she inherited the show Dale Evans did at WHAS after
> Evans left.
> She also appeared in some ensemble television casts, and was involved in
> numerous local theater projects.
> When she heard about the talking books at the American Printing House for
> the Blind, her son said she considered it an acting opportunity.
> Sales also funded the launch of Audio Description at The Kentucky Center
> for
> the Performing Arts in 1991 in memory of her husband, who died in 1987.
> The
> program provides narrators who broadcast live descriptions of the action
> onstage to audience members during performances.
> She also was the voice on the center's 10th anniversary "Tour on Tape,"
> and
> co-wrote that script.
> A graveside service is planned for 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday at The Temple
> cemetery.
> A memorial service will be held sometime next year, her son said.
> Herman Meyer & Son funeral home is handling arrangements.
> Reporter Paula Burba can be reached at (502) 582-4800.
>