Alumni

By Wendy Mohon

Kanaly family continues support of Medical School

For more than a decade, Susan Cooley King, Ph.D., worked to encourage parents and pediatricians that reading plays an important role in a child’s development.

Although she has now retired, her successful efforts to establish Reach Out and Read programs across Texas with the mission of making early literacy a standard part of pediatric medical exams will continue with help from the new Susan Cooley King Pediatric Literacy Fund.

Reach Out and Read is a national effort that trains pediatricians to encourage parents to read to their children every day and gives a new book to the child at each of 10 well-baby visits between 6 months and 5 years. Reach Out and Read-Texas (ROR-TX), the statewide coalition Dr. King led to promote and sustain the program in Texas, is a program of Children’s Learning Institute, which is affiliated with Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics.

With the help of generous donors, James T. Willerson, M.D., health science center president, established the endowed fund to ensure that Dr. King’s work on behalf of ROR-TX continues, and to pay homage to Dr. King’s 32 years of service to the health science center and to Texas children. Dr. King, who retired in February as project director of ROR-TX, was an assistant professor of pediatrics and a pediatric nurse practitioner.

“I was surprised and honored when I received a letter from Dr. Willerson telling me that a pediatric literacy fund had been established in my name, and I was stunned at the list of my friends who contributed,” Dr. King says. “This is absolutely wonderful because it means that ROR-TX will have books for years to come. I am thrilled!”

Among the donors to the fund were longtime UT Health Science Center supporters, Charles and Judy Tate.

“Charles and I were so happy to have the opportunity to honor Susan,” says Judy Tate. “Susan is passionate about improving the lives of others and has worked tirelessly to promote literacy in young children. What a fitting tribute for a very special friend!”

Dr. King has garnered many supporters of her work throughout the years, but one person in particular has been cheering her on from the very beginning.

“Establishment of a fund in Susan’s honor gives me great satisfaction,” says renowned heart surgeon and Dr. King’s father, Denton Cooley, M.D., president and founder of the Texas Heart Institute and UT clinical professor of cardiothoracic and vascular surgery. “She has devoted so much effort and time into improving and encouraging reading for children. She contacted many pediatricians, schools, and teachers for this program, and it should have a lasting effect on our children for generations to come.”

Money from the Susan Cooley King Pediatric Literacy Fund will be used to purchase and distribute early children’s books to pediatric clinics across Texas.

“One of the most critical components of the Reach Out and Read program is having adequate numbers of high-quality books for the program in the greater Houston area, as well as across the state,” says Susan Landry, Ph.D., director of Children’s Learning Institute. “The goal of ROR-TX also is to keep building capacity with more and more clinics and pediatric practices that have this program.

“This fund is wonderful for allowing us to build this program and make sure the families have the books that we know are so important for children’s language development and cognitive and social skills,” adds Dr. Landry, who also is the Michael Matthew Knight Memorial Professor of Pediatrics.