(On page 6B you will see that my mom was awarded Lady of the Year status from Alpha Tau Delta service sorority. Here is the write up Dad wrote for her.)
Peggy Cooke has a distinguished history of community service in Rockdale, beginning January 1, 1959 when her husband began work as editor of the local newspaper. For the next 50 years she wrote a Lifestyle column that became one of the most popular items in the newspaper each week, full of local interest items, clever anecdotes, good humor and usually ending with a tasty recipe. In addition, she served as the paper’s proofreader, carefully reading every story on each page every Tuesday. And during Rockdale’s economic heyday, The Reporter was averaging 26 pages a week. That’s lot of proofing, and Peggy “saved the news staff’s collective behinds” countless times.
The mother of four children, she went to work for the Rockdale Independent School District as soon as all of her children were in school. She worked as the first full-time director of the RISD Community Education program, arranging for night classes for adults and securing classrooms and instructors for a variety of classes, based on public demand.
Next, she joined Dr. Joyce Bayless who was director of the Milam-Burleson Special Education Cooperative which was, at the time, headquartered in the Rockdale ISD. She drove to the various schools in the two-county Co-Op area doing testing that was used in evaluating the strengths and needs of students in special education.
That job was an outgrowth of her volunteerism with the Milam Adult Resource Center, better known as the MARC Center. She volunteered beginning in the 1960s, when the Center was located in a frame building on Grace Street, including serving on the MARC Center board of directors. She still serves on the board today for the Center, now located on Pecos Street.
Peggy and her close friend, Martha Parsley, another MARC volunteer, saw a need and started a Sunday school class at St. John’s United Methodist Church for clients of the MARC Center and other special needs adults. They started that class in the middle 1970s and that “All-Stars” class is still going strong 50-plus years later. After Mrs. Parsley’s death, Peggy is now assisted by Denice Starnes with class activities. A charter member of that class is Spencer Stephens, now 66, who still attends every Sunday.
A member of a “tennis family,” she ran the youth division of the Rockdale Open Tennis Tournament for many years, and also worked the table at the weekend adult division of the tourney.
Another of her volunteer roles in the community was as a reading tutor with the East-Side Tutoring organization that met weekly for decades at New Hope Baptist Church. Many of the students from that tutoring program went on to post scholastic honors and many still greet her with much fondness. One student wanted to learn reading skills so he could “read the Bible and some day preach the Gospel.” And he did just that, and still does.
Peggy and husband Bill raised their four children— Kathy, Kyle, Ken and Kevin— in Rockdale. Kevin and Kathy are deceased. Kyle is now editor of The Reporter, and Ken is editor-publisher of the Fredericksburg Standard weekly newspaper in Fredericksburg. Peggy and Bill have six grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Peggy Cooke, a loving wife, mother, grandmother, community servant and friend to so many people and so many worthwhile causes.
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