Geraldine “Tincy” Miller 2004 Recipient of Virginia Chandler Dykes Leadership Award

1/09/04

DALLAS — Geraldine “Tincy” Miller is the 2004 recipient of the Virginia Chandler Dykes Leadership Award, presented by Texas Woman’s University and the TWU School of Occupational Therapy. TWU Chancellor Dr. Ann Stuart will present the award during a Jan. 23 luncheon at the Lakewood Country Club in Dallas.

The education of Texans has always been a chief priority for Mrs. Miller. She spent nearly a decade teaching in the reading laboratory of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children and in the Highland Park Presbyterian Hillier School for Dyslexia. For the past 19 years she has served on the Texas State Board of Education, representing Rockwall County and parts of Collin and Dallas counties.

She was appointed to the Texas State Board of Education in 1984 by former Gov. Mark White and then was elected to the board in 1988. She was reelected to the board in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2002. In February 2003, Gov. Rick Perry appointed Mrs. Miller chair of the board.

Mrs. Miller is a past president and serves on the board of L.I.F.T. (Literacy Instruction for Texas), a non-profit organization providing literacy instruction to adults. She is the founding chair for the Baylor Health Care System Foundation’s Annual Giving Campaign, which raised more than $250,000 in its inaugural year.

Mrs. Miller also is a member of Phi Delta Kappa (the professional association for educators), Kappa Delta Pi (the international honor society in education), the International Reading Association and the Academic Language Therapist Association.

She is active in the Dallas community, chairing major fund-raising events for the United Cerebral Palsy Association, Dallas Opera, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, TACA, the umbrella organization for the performing arts in Dallas, and the Crystal Charity Ball, a non-profit organization that raised a record-setting $3 million for underprivileged children in Dallas County in 1997. She also served on the boards for the “I Have A Dream” Foundation, National Orton-Dyslexia Society, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Dallas and the Dallas County Heritage Society.

Mrs. Miller received the 1999 Tom Landry Award of Excellence in Volunteerism from United Cerebral Palsy. She also received the 1995 Dallas Historical Society Hall of State Award for Civic Involvement and in 1975 was Theta of the Year for Service in the Community for Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

In November 2003 she was named as a recipient of Northwood University's Distinguished Women awards.

Mrs. Miller also is a licensed real estate broker and vice chairman of Henry S. Miller Companies in Dallas. She and her husband, Vance, are the parents of four children.

The Virginia Chandler Dykes Leadership Award was established in 2002 and is given annually to a Dallas resident who represents the caring, commitment and leadership Mrs. Dykes exemplifies.

As a health care provider and through her civic activities, Mrs. Dykes has spent a lifetime committed to helping others. Nationally and internationally she’s known for her work in occupational therapy. Locally, she’s known for her leadership in such organizations as the Dallas Opera, Dallas Arboretum and Dallas-Fort Worth Ballet.

Mrs. Dykes completed the graduate occupational therapy program at Texas Woman’s University in 1954 after earning her bachelor of arts in art and psychology from Southern Methodist University in 1952. She was director of the Occupational and Recreational Therapy Department at Baylor University Medical Center for 25 years, and developed and supervised the occupational and recreational therapy programs at Baylor in rehabilitation, adult and adolescent psychiatry, eating disorders and hand splinting. Mrs. Dykes also founded the Boomerang Club, the first support group for stroke patients and their families in Dallas.

Her community service activities have included establishing the annual Fanny B. Vanderkooi Endowed Lectureship for the School of Occupational Therapy at TWU; serving on the board of directors for the Dallas Opera, Theater III, Fort Worth Opera, Dallas-Fort Worth Ballet, Les Femmes du Monde and Dallas Theater Center Guild; serving as president of the Diana Dean Head Injury Guild; and chairing auxiliary board of the Healing Environment Program at Baylor.

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For Further Information Contact:

Roy Kron
Director of News and Information
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: rkron@twu.edu