Community members and healthcare professionals unite in remembrance

(May 7, 2008) Jourdanton, TX- South Texas Regional Medical Center (STRMC), in conjunction with the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center (STBTC) honored late Army Sergeant, Maurice Preston Cooper at a Donor Awareness Ceremony on Wednesday, April 30, 2008. The ceremony was held at the South Texas Regional Medical Center Courtyard in Jourdanton.

Pastor Scotty Smith, with the Cowboy Fellowship in Jourdanton delivered an invocation prayer that was filled with many warm memories of the late Maurcie Cooper and his devotion to the church.

Sergeant Cooper's wife, Carolyn Cooper, who lives in Poteet was present to accept a plaque in name of her late husband and hero, who donated bone, tendon, skin and cornea tissues for the enrichment of another's life. Mrs. Cooper gave a memorable speech about her selfless late husband and the lives that he was able to improve through his donations. A mosaic birdbath, compliments of STBTC was erected in the hospital courtyard beside a commemorative stone plaque to honor the occasion.

STBTC's Vice-President of Development and Tissue Services, Mary Beth Fisk, relayed to the audience, "150,000 transplant donations were performed in the State of Texas last year. Over 30,000 happened in South Texas hospitals such as STRMC."

Michael Pierce, CEO of the South Texas Regional Medical Center comments, "I was honored to have met the Cooper family. The significance of this Donor Ceremony is that it allows us the opportunity to connect the astonishing annual figures for tissue transplants in Texas, to actual local families who have contributed to those medical miracles."

The patients receiving these tissue graft components can be suffering orthopedic damage caused by trauma, infection or degenerative disease; they can be burn patients, or an infant born with defective heart valves. Whatever the story on the receiving end may be, donating tissue has the powerful and positive impact of restoring life for an individual who may be facing eminent death.

This event was held in April, to celebrate National Organ & Tissue Donor Awareness Month and top recognize the South Texas Regional Medical Center for their dedication and support towards tissue donation and transplantation.

Media Contact: Danielle Flores
Telephone: 830.769.5276
Email: danielle_flores@chs.net