NEWS                                                        July 26, 1995
                                    
    FCC KICKS-OFF TRS AWARENESS CAMPAIGN ON FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
                     AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT
                                    
     FCC Chairman Reed E. Hundt today, joined by Heather Whitestone, Miss America
1995, kicked off a new FCC campaign to raise public awareness of the Telecommunications
Relay Services (TRS), a nationwide system that allows anyone to make a telephone call to
people with hearing and/or speech disabilities.  It also allows persons with disabilities who
place calls using a text typewriter to call anyone they wish, whether or not the called-party
has any special equipment.

     Ms. Whitestone, who has been profoundly deaf since the age of 18 months, is the first
Miss America with a disability.  As the 75th-Anniversary Miss America, Ms. Whitestone
heads the nation's largest public service campaign aimed at early identification of hearing
loss.  She also serves as an executive member of the President's Committee on Employment
of People with Disabilities.  She said, "I commend Chairman Hundt and the FCC for this
outreach effort.  Getting the word out to the American public that TRS exists and is easy for
everyone to use will go a long way toward ensuring that persons with hearing and speech
disabilities are included in the important exchange of information that the telephone
provides." 

     She and Chairman Hundt conducted a live telephone call through an actual TRS center
with Chairman Hundt on one telephone and Ms. Whitestone at a second phone using a TTY
text telephone. 
     
     Chairman Hundt, who is the  FCC's "Disabilities Issues Commissioner" said, "TRS is
a most effective tool to ensure that all Americans are included in the information revolution,
including millions of people with hearing and speech disabilities." 

     Today is the date of the second anniversary of the establishment of TRS and the fifth
anniversary of the effective date of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 which
mandated the creation of TRS.

     
                                  - FCC -