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Cook continues educational endeavors
Published 3/28/2011 in Local News
By JEROME P. CURRY
jcurry@gctelegram.com
Lenora Cook, Garden City Community College's dean of technical education, recalls coming to Garden City in 1990. She was 39 and planned to start nursing school at GCCC.
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Laurie Sisk/Telegram Lenora Cook, dean of technical education, stands in her office at Garden City Community College on Thursday morning.
Cook was, by definition, the prototypical nontraditional student of the era.
"I'm a late bloomer," she said. "I drove down here from Leoti."
She was born and reared in Lenora, pretty close to a northwest Kansas wheat field. She was not named for her hometown.
"I was named for my mother, Lenora Parker," Cook said.
She may have bloomed late, but Cook hasn't stopped blooming.
Cook graduated from GCCC's registered nursing program in 1992. She started to work at a hospital in Canyon, Texas.
"I was lucky to get the evening shift, 4 p.m. to midnight in those days," Cook said.
She kept on in the classroom and earned her bachelor of science in nursing in 1995 at Canyon's West Texas A&M University, then her master's there in 1995.
"I started late, but I kept going," Cook said with a smile.
She is more than leader and nurse par excellence. Cook also is wife to Randy, and a mother, grandmother and daughter.
And she counts her "warm fuzzies."
Cook is guaranteed three a year, although, she said, there usually are many more.
Those guaranteed warm fuzzies are:
* "When I put on my gown and regalia in preparing for graduation. I see how fortunate I am being surrounded by all the talented students and teachers."
* "After we march into the gym and you hear the voices in the crowd, 'You go, Mom!' and 'Wow, Grandma!' and you are part of it."
* "Pinning the new nurses as a part of graduation ceremonies and the students thank their supporters for what they do."
One of the "warmest fuzzies" of all came on Sept. 13, 2009, in a letter slipped under the front door of her then office by a man she considers a mentor in her life — Gary Jarmer, a retired dean of technical instruction at GCCC, a title that since has evolved to dean of technical education.
Cook had been appointed to the office. The appointment was effective July 1, 2009. She had been GCCC's director of nursing education for the previous five years after working from 1995 to 2004 as a nursing instructor at GCCC and nearly simultaneously, 1996 to 2004, as a staff nurse at St. Catherine Hospital.
Jarmer was the man who hired her to teach nursing at GCCC.
Her mentor told her in the letter that came in under the door:
"Not long ago you accepted the challenge of becoming a leader to a group of dedicated instructors. What a challenge and what an opportunity. I remember your telling me that perhaps I did influence you to become a faculty member because — although nursing in practice was rewarding; helping others to become nurses was equally important and also rewarding. Now you have the opportunity to influence teachers to become more than they ever though possible. Within this concept lies the art of leadership.
"... Lenora, whatever goals you set for your future will surely be met just as those goals of being a successful teacher came to be true as well.
"Stay as you are — self-assured, confident, and always knowing what you want. I am very proud of you. Congratulations."
After reading the letter, Cook said to herself, "Yes, sir" and "Thank you."
The following December, Cook earned her doctorate from Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
"My dream was to be a nurse," Cook said, "and to be there when a patient was hurting, to help."
Jarmer, she said, helped her understand the wonder and necessity of education.
Today, she is nurse and educator, and maybe a little more.
As dean of technical education, she oversees a division that includes nursing and other health care fields, automotive technology, cosmetology, industrial production technology, criminal justice, fire science and emergency medical services, welding, automation, industrial refrigeration and GCCC's business and information systems programs.
"Talk about nontraditional students," Cook said and smiled. "We have women in welding now; men in nursing."
The definition of nontraditional student seems to have expanded in the past two decades.
That, Cook said, is wonderful.
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