San Antonio Missions Host Exceptional Parent's Disability Awareness Event
Published on August 17, 2005 under Texas League (TL1)
San Antonio Missions News Release
San Antonio, TX, August 5, 2005 - The EP Foundation for Education and Exceptional Parent magazine, with the corporate support of the MassMutual San Antonio Agency and Genzyme Corporation, will present a Disability Awareness event on August 18, 2005 when the San Antonio Missions take on the Tulsa Drillers at Wolff Stadium. For this event, several hundred game tickets have been donated to local disability organizations including Easter Seals and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
The night will pay tribute to the contributions of the 54 million Americans with disabilities, their families and caregivers. At a pre-game ceremony near home plate, the EP Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Kathy McKinney, Donovan Fikes and the House family.
Kathy McKinney is the director of special education for the Military School Districts' Cooperative comprised of the Ft. Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph Field Independent School Districts (ISD) in San Antonio, Texas. Her 30-year career in education includes twenty years in the Northside Independent School District, teaching elementary and middle school students, children with autism and emotional disturbances and the supervision and administration of special education programs. She is involved in both city and statewide initiatives for programs for students with disabilities and support networks for parents. She currently serves as past president of the 1200+ member Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education. ?, will be presenting the EP Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award to Kathy McKinney.
On April 1, 1991 Donovan Fikes was involved in a swimming accident, which resulted in a severe spinal injury that classified him as a C5 Quadriplegic. In the years following his accident, with courage and determination, Fikes obtained a general business degree at the University of Texas in San Antonio. For five years, Fikes also participated in wheelchair Rugby for Warm Springs Rehabilitation Center, traveling to a different part of the county every month. When Warm Springs stopped the Rugby program, Fikes took over as head coach and incorporated the program into a self-funding, non-profit organization. The Rough Riders are part of the U.S.Q.R.A and are still in existence today, recruiting and training other quadriplegic players, some as young as 14-years-old. For 10 years, Fikes has been involved in the Spinal Cord & Head Injury Program, speaking to over 100,000 fourth grade students regarding the proper use of helmets, and guidance on making the right choices to protect themselves from injury. For the last seven or eight years, Fikes has donated his time as a live patient at U.T. Health Science Center, Physical Therapy School, to help students with diagnoses and treatment of spinal injuries. He is part of a mentorship program for newly injured Quadriplegics and their families, and has been invited to sit on the Board of San Antonio Sports Foundation and Alamo Solutions. In addition to these tremendous contributions to the disability community, Fikes also plans to travel to Germany to participate in Dr. Goldsmith's Research for spinal cord regeneration. Today he is an independent, financial professional, owning Fikes Financial Services, who helps others build and protect their financial programs. Frank Woodruff, general agent, South Texas Agency of MassMutual Financial Group, will be presenting the EP Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award to Donavan Fikes.
Tiffany, Randall and Marilyn House are being honored for their extraordinary love, courage and dedication in finding a cure for acid maltase deficiency, or Pompe disease, a rare, incurable, genetic disorder that can afflict infants, juveniles and adults and causes severe muscle weakness, trouble breathing and heart problems, as glycogen, a thick substance the body makes from sugars and starches, builds up in respiratory and heart muscles. A week before Tiffany turned 12; she was diagnosed with this disease.
After being told by specialists she would be lucky to make it to her 20th birthday, her muscles would inexorably deteriorate and she would be unable to walk or breathe on her own, Tiffany and her family refused to accept this conclusion. Determined to better Tiffany's odds, her parents founded the Acid Maltase Deficiency Association, a research organization and support group. And after investing their own money and time into research, they helped fund a groundbreaking enzyme replacement therapy. Tiffany has also participated in clinical trials of the treatment partially funded by her parents at Erasmus Medical Center in Holland, making her the first juvenile patient to receive enzyme replacement therapy in the original transgenic trials at this Center. Her recovery has been remarkable. Now 22, Tiffany has undergone surgery to straighten her spine and has regained significant muscle function. She has also graduated magna cum laude, from the University of Texas at San Antonio, with a bachelor's degree in English. Keith Alkek, Genzyme Corporation, will be presenting the EP Maxwell J. Schleifer Distinguished Service Award to Tiffany House and her family.
The award given to Kathy McKinney, Donovan Fikes and the House family, is named after the founder and former editor-in-chief of Exceptional Parent who was an advocate for people with special needs and who passed away in 2000. Exceptional Parent is this nation's oldest and most widely referred to publication of its kind, reaching a vast audience of physicians, nurses, therapists, teachers and families involved in the care and development of children and adults with disabilities and special health care needs.
"Our goal is to help all Americans understand that we will become a stronger nation and better human beings when we learn to regard people with disabilities and special needs as people to be respected, not as problems to be confronted" said Valenzano.
Disability Awareness Night began in the summer of 2002 when Exceptional Parent magazine combined forces with the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox to create the first event of its kind. Last season 26 similar events were held in ballparks across the country. This year, the program has expanded to include minor league parks as well.
Texas League Stories from August 17, 2005
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- Pulsipher Strong in Cards' Win - Springfield Cardinals
- San Antonio Missions Host Exceptional Parent's Disability Awareness Event - San Antonio Missions
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- Thigpen homer deals CC back-to-back one-run losses - Corpus Christi Hooks
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