Family and friends rallied to help Army Spc. Matthew Cooke and his wife, Sara, relatives said when sharing stories about the aftermath of the shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas last year.
Cooke, who was shot four times and suffered serious injuries, continues his recovery at home in his off-post apartment in Killeen, Texas.
Cooke, 30, of Forward Support Company, 20th Battalion, 36th Brigade, was among 30 people injured when Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly opened fire at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5. Twelve soldiers and one civilian died.
On Nov. 5, Sara said, she had been running errands with Amanda Adams, a friend from the Family Readiness Group, when they heard news that a sergeant had been shot. Then another sergeant called her to say Cooke couldn't be located and to ask if she could check at home, she said.
But she knew Cooke wasn't home because she had the family's only car and the house keys, she said, and it wouldn't be like him to be "lazy" and be at home, not work. After returning home, she checked her e-mail and found out from a relative that Matthew had been shot.
"I was pretty much hysterical and crying," Sara said. Adams calmed her then and at other times since the shooting, she said.
Diane Frappier, Cooke's mother who lives in Norwood, N.C., said she took pride in the efforts by Matthew's siblings to travel from East Coast homes to be at their brother's side.
"Our family is very tight," Frappier said this week. "His whole family was extremely supportive."
Charges, including 13 counts of premeditated murder, were filed Nov. 12 against Hasan for the shooting incident at Fort Hood.
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The Foothills Performing Arts Center is an important piece of the local community and arts picture, and the theater complex must be finished, Oneonta Mayor Dick Miller said Wednesday.
Miller said he didn't know details about Foothills' recent staff, programming and fundraising issues, but he expressed confidence in board members' objectives.
"I'm sure they are doing all they can for the future of Foothills," Miller said Wednesday. "It needs to be completed so that the programming promise it holds for the community will be realized."
Earlier this week, four Foothills employees were fired by the board, and two others resigned in support of their colleagues. The board is looking for an interim executive director and reviewing budgeting and programming status.
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Gov. David Paterson must take steps to offset cuts in services and job losses in health care, an association president said in response this week's State of the State address.
"We are gratified to hear the governor mention the over-regulation that burdens health care providers," Daniel Sisto, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State, said in a prepared statement.
It is interesting, however, that he referred to this season as a winter of reckoning.' For health care providers, it has already been two years of reckoning, Sisto said. "In just the last 20 months, the state has imposed five rounds of crippling health care cuts and a new tax that have cost health care providers more than $1 billion a year.
"He cannot claim to improve our health care system and then propose still more health care cuts, which are expected to be included in his forthcoming budget plan. He cannot have it both ways," Sisto said.
HANYS has made many recommendations to modernize and improve the regulatory structure, Sisto said.
The association represents more than 550 nonprofit and public hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies and other health care organizations.
Staff writer Denise Richardson covers health, business and local colleges.
