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Honorary Chair - Rachel Wilken
Rachel Whitefield Wilken, a native of Corpus Christi, always loved all creatures. As a child, she gently played with spiders, doodle bugs, ant lions.... all types of creatures, and released them in safe habitats. She desperately wanted a pet, but her parents thought a pet might hurt her. Rachel found a way around that and played with all of the animals in the neighborhood. One day that caught up with her. Just before her second birthday she went next door to play with the neighbor's big, yellow tomcat. He had his back to her and when she touched him, he turned around with a fierce look in his eyes and foam dripping from his mouth. He attacked her face and head, biting and scratching, and wailing before he ran off. After Grandmother Whitefield quit screaming, parents were called, and Rachel was rushed off to the pediatrician and Animal Control was called to find the cat. The cat was rabid. The old painful rabies shots in the abdomen were administered. Rachel was told that the cat had a disease that killed it and could have killed her. She felt sorry for the cat.
Rachel saved every living thing that she found. After a rain, she walked through the gutters in the streets, picking up all of the earthworms, bringing them home and putting them in the family's garden. When puddles were drying up at school, she scooped out all of the tadpoles, and had them in jars in the bathroom, according to their growth. She seemed to sense when it was time for the second pair of legs to pop out, so she would watch for that time, and release the little frogs in the back yard. Her mother took great pride in telling her tea and bridge party guests why all the jars were in the bathroom.
And so it went. She always checked on the condition of stores that had pet sections and told the managers if the animals looked sick, the cages were dirty, or there wasn't enough food or clean water. She bought a one- footed blue parakeet and named him "Coropades". He loved to fly on top of her snare drum and pound out a beat.
Meanwhile, Rachel was a straight A student in school and a talented, award-winning pianist, painter, sculpture, flower-arranger, writer and dancer. At ten she started a neighborhood library in her home where the kids checked books in and out from her. When she was 12 she gave all of her extensive doll collection away to poor children when she heard in church that some children didn't even have one doll. At this time she also began teaching dance class at the Olstowski
Studio, and also worked as a model for artists, photographers, and on the runway.
Meanwhile, she continued to rehabilitate animals. When baby birds fell out of trees, she would try to find the nests to get them back home. When that was impossible, she and her mother would make a mash of cornmeal, worms, and bugs that she removed from the grills of her parents' cars to feed the birds. Even though some vets told her to give milk and bread, she knew that the parent birds didn't do that, so she didn't. Most of the birds made it. There were so many animals. One duck's neck was badly broken in a hurricane. The duck's head was upside down. She carefully untwisted the neck, and made a brace of foam and tape. The duck had a full recovery.
Rachel rode her first horse at five and her parents bought her first horse at 12. She ran poles and barrels. Her second horse was an American Standard, so she was taught to ride English and jump. By that time, she was breaking horses for other people and her family had their own rides. Her third horse was a beautiful paint that she had to break. Still an A student, she had moved onto flute and was a solo ballerina. She was still rehabilitating animals, especially birds. She had purchased veterinary books so she could learn how to set wings and legs.
She received a scholarship for Dance at the University of Texas at El Paso, but sustained a career- ending Achilles injury when her motorcycle hit a patch of sand, went out of control, and hit a telephone pole. At nineteen, she began her teaching career at Flour Bluff High School teaching gymnastics and dance, and founded the Flour Bluff Dance Squad.
She returned to school and adding religion, received her BA in English. She was voted President of the local chapter of Alpha Phi Omega, the National Historical Honor Society when she returned to school for a Teaching Certificate and some graduate work. She was an Activities Director at a nursing home, a Social Worker for Child Protective Services, and a Mental Health Social Worker for MH/MR before returning to teaching. She taught at high schools, parochial schools, Pan American University and Del Mar College at night. In the 1970's Rachel became one of the first female respiratory therapists in the Coastal Bend.
Her rehabilitation work continued throughout those years. At times she had two hundred birds under her care. She developed a protocol to save birds that had contracted the West Nile Virus that proved very successful. Her mouth-to-beak CPR has worked most of the time when people have brought her birds that had just died, amazing all who witnessed it. Rachel, along with City Councilman Brent Chesney was instrumental in developing city policy prohibiting the cutting of trees during nesting season.
Rachel had no grant to fund her work, no salary, only donations and those were rare. The Audubon Outdoor Club gave her a monthly donation and the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program gave her assistance. Now that was both a wonderful blessing and recognition of her life-long great work and tremendous sacrifice. Rachel has participated in Earth Day annually since its inception in 1970.
As for her teaching career, she loved and was loved by her two-legged creatures and their families as well. She has stacks of letters of appreciation from students, parents, administrators, and school superintendents. Her research on the identification of the main idea got her an invitation to speak before the School Committee of the Texas Education Agency, and the result was publishers stopping the presses, editing their textbooks, and national recognition for Rachel.
She is also a Distinguished Fellow with the American Board of Master Educators, a Caller- Times "South Texas Educator of the Year" and two - time HEB regional finalist for "Excellence in Education".
Rachel has been a ham radio operator (K5RWW) for over 20 years and is currently the Alternate District Radio Officer for the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service, providing backup communications for the DPS. Over the years she has been a newspaper reporter and has won many local, regional, and national writing contests. Rachel has been a licensed minister for over twenty years.
Rachel's neurologist has demanded that she stop rehabbing because of a hemorrhagic brain stroke she suffered a few years ago. She retired from teaching after almost thirty years, but is as busy as ever. She teaches singing and stage presence at Trinity Recording Studio, does academic therapy, tutoring, and substitute teaching at her favorite high schools. She is also busy writing short stories on her favorite special birds and is working on a book about bird rehabilitation. Does she still take in birds? Officially, no. But she had to accept "Snow White" the common egret, whose wing was broken and left foot was broken off. She set the wing and reattached the foot and the toes are moving. And ”Katie the Kestrel“ that a refinery worker chased around for a full day to catch. Katie had four open fractures in one wing but she will most probably fly again. What can she do? Her husband, Jim, still answers the door and finds birds she has released standing there with their children that have been injured. He has gotten used to it and just calls her to the door amazed saying, “Rachel it’s for you”.
Almost fifty years of rehabbing birds...this is a great part of Rachel's life, mission, and legacy.
Rachel and Jim have four adult children, Rob, Leah, Jonathon and Matthew.
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