A tribute to a friend and local community hero: Joe Ann Dove

About a week ago (as I write this), I received a trou­bling phone call from a friend of mine.  It was a Sunday morn­ing, and she called to let me know that a mutu­al friend, Joe Ann Dove, had died and that the funer­al had been held on the pre­ced­ing day.  She said that she knew that the rea­son I was­n’t there was that I had­n’t heard of Joe Ann’s pass­ing.  She was correct—I had not heard, and I was upset that she had died and upset with myself for not hav­ing been at her ser­vice.  I was trou­bled for some time about that, reflect­ing upon her death and deeply sad­dened by it.  But then, I began to shift my reflec­tions from her death to her life.  Her life brought joy to her fam­i­ly and friends and made a tremen­dous impact on our community. 

I know many peo­ple attend­ed her ser­vice, and they knew Joe Ann from var­i­ous per­spec­tives.  I decid­ed to write this trib­ute to share with you, espe­cial­ly those of you who may not have known her and the impact this love­ly per­son had on our community. 

Joe Ann was born in Greenville, Kentucky, the daugh­ter of a pas­tor.  They moved around a bit, and she grad­u­at­ed from high school in Danville.  She attend­ed col­lege in Alabama and even­tu­al­ly became a teacher.  In Alabama, she met and mar­ried her hus­band, Ken Dove, who many will remem­ber as a phar­ma­cist and own­er of the Home Convalescent Aids phar­ma­cy here in Winchester.  They moved to Winchester in 1969.  At that time, they had two young daugh­ters, and Joe Ann had been a stay-at-home mom.  However, after mov­ing to Winchester, that was about to change.

Joe Ann got involved in her church here in Winchester, the First Baptist Church down­town.  She got involved with the child care pro­grams, and this was a life-chang­ing event for her as well as the begin­ning of a his­toric set of cir­cum­stances for our com­mu­ni­ty.  She was even­tu­al­ly con­vinced to vis­it a pro­gram oper­at­ing at the First Christian Church that served as a child care provider for chil­dren with spe­cial needs. 

She start­ed out assist­ing staff and lat­er became the direc­tor of what was then known as the Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC).  The pro­gram even­tu­al­ly moved into the Presbyterian Church, where Rev. Ed Mesta was serv­ing. This is when I was intro­duced to the two of them in the mid-1970s. I was a social work­er and came onto the board of the Clark County Association of Handicapped Citizens (CCAHC). 

Joe Ann and I got to know each oth­er very well, and I con­tin­ued to serve on that board into the 1990s.  She was the direc­tor and, for most of those years we worked togeth­er, I was the chair of the board.  I saw first­hand the pas­sion, com­pas­sion, and com­mit­ment Joe Ann had for that pop­u­la­tion she was serving. 

One of the impres­sive things about her was that she was nev­er con­tent to sit still. 

When I first became involved, the pro­gram served preschool-aged chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties.  This was before we had a preschool in the pub­lic school sys­tem.  I remem­ber approach­ing Joe Ann one day and telling her of a young woman I was work­ing with who had an infant child with mul­ti­ple phys­i­cal and devel­op­men­tal dis­abil­i­ties.  There was no child care for her, and she was unable to find work.  We dis­cussed the need for child care in our com­mu­ni­ty, and Joe Ann pre­sent­ed the issue to her staff, who agreed to expand care to infants.  This was a major step for­ward for our community. 

This is just one exam­ple of Joe Ann’s will­ing­ness to look out­side the box.  We dis­cussed the lack of ser­vices and pro­gram­ming avail­able to these chil­dren after they aged out of the pub­lic school sys­tem.  Joe Ann knew that we need­ed to look at expand­ing our ser­vices to the adult intel­lec­tu­al­ly and devel­op­men­tal­ly dis­abled (IDD) pop­u­la­tion.  A sum­mer day camp for adults was estab­lished at College Park, and our first direc­tor for that pro­gram was Steve Flairty.  Many of you may know him as a for­mer Clark County school teacher and cur­rent author.  Joe Ann became our Executive Director as ser­vices to adults were expanding. 

She sought out grants and worked dili­gent­ly with oth­er com­mu­ni­ty part­ners and fund­ing sources to expand ser­vices to both chil­dren and adults in our com­mu­ni­ty.  Her efforts helped bring about a sup­port­ed employ­ment pro­gram for indi­vid­u­als with IDD (SCOPE) and assist­ed in get­ting employ­ment for many indi­vid­u­als with mul­ti­ple employ­ers through­out our com­mu­ni­ty.  I know of sev­er­al to this day that are still employed and earn­ing an income because of this oppor­tu­ni­ty.  The sum­mer camp evolved into a full-time pro­gram for social­iza­tion and phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and con­tin­ues to this day, known as Stride. 

In the late 1980s, an oppor­tu­ni­ty came about to con­sid­er increas­ing hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for the IDD pop­u­la­tion.  Joe Ann was full steam ahead on the idea of our board apply­ing for a HUD grant to cre­ate a sub­si­dized apart­ment com­plex focused on hous­ing for the IDD pop­u­la­tion.  We worked hard on that project, and many ded­i­cat­ed folks were involved.  We also over­came many obsta­cles in obtain­ing prop­er­ty (includ­ing a fire, prop­er­ty con­dem­na­tion pro­ceed­ings in court, and hav­ing to reap­ply for the grant), but even­tu­al­ly, in the ear­ly 1990s, we saw the open­ing of the Phoenix House Apartments on Main Street.  It con­tin­ues to pro­vide sub­si­dized hous­ing for dis­abled and senior citizens. 

These are just a few of the efforts Joe Ann Dove was involved in that had sig­nif­i­cant impacts and pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tions to our com­mu­ni­ty.  She also served on var­i­ous boards and com­mit­tees relat­ed to preschool and ser­vices to the dis­abled, and was very active in her church and in ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty.  We worked togeth­er for about twen­ty years but remained friends for­ev­er.  The impact she had on this com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly with the dis­abled, is tremen­dous, and her efforts con­tin­ue to serve today via pro­grams like Stride and the Phoenix House.

An inter­est­ing sto­ry involves how Joe Ann pro­vid­ed a home for a kan­ga­roo.  We were both involved in the Clark County Human Services Council at the time, and a com­mu­ni­ty project we worked on togeth­er was col­lect­ing food for the Clark County Community Services food pantry.  The Human Services Council con­ceived the idea of cre­at­ing a life-sized kan­ga­roo cutout with a box behind the pouch, where canned or boxed goods would be placed.  We called the kan­ga­roo Hoppy, and the slo­gan was to fill Hoppy’s pouch.  We moved it around to dif­fer­ent store loca­tions.  The prob­lem was where Hoppy would stay when not vis­it­ing a store. Joe Ann vol­un­teered to give Hoppy a home at her house, and I remem­ber her telling me that he stayed there long after he retired from gath­er­ing donations—she said he was no trou­ble at all!

Joe Ann Dove cared deeply about peo­ple and her com­mu­ni­ty.  She always had a smile and a dis­tinc­tive laugh.  The last time I saw her, she had invit­ed me to vis­it her home.  By this time, her hus­band Ken had died, and she was expe­ri­enc­ing some seri­ous health issues.  She was giv­ing up her home and was plan­ning to move in with her daugh­ter in Lexington.  She want­ed me to have some of her books, know­ing we both shared a pas­sion for reading. 

We also shared many sto­ries that day, rem­i­nisc­ing about the past that we had shared since the mid-1970s.  Even with the loss of her hus­band, her home, and her health issues, she was still smil­ing, laugh­ing, and upbeat.  It was sad to see her leav­ing then, and even sad­der now to know she is gone.  But it is impor­tant to know that her life was mean­ing­ful and she had a tremen­dous­ly pos­i­tive impact on this community.

Joe Ann Dove is an exam­ple of those indi­vid­u­als who strive to make their com­mu­ni­ty a bet­ter place for all. In an arti­cle writ­ten by then Winchester Sun reporter Shanda Pulliam (now Shanda Crosby)  in 1986, Kathy Grawe, one of the teach­ers at ECDC described Joe Ann as “...one of the most car­ing peo­ple that I’ve met.  She is real­ly com­mit­ted to serv­ing oth­er peo­ple, and because of that, she has done every­thing in her pow­er to find out ways she can make this pro­gram more comprehensive.” 

In that same arti­cle, Joe Ann ref­er­enced a pas­sage that she had car­ried with her in her heart since her high school days.  It seems very fit­ting to share it here with you. 

“When I’ve come to the end of the road
I should like to look back and see
That I have done my very best.
With the trust that’s placed in me,
I should like the con­so­la­tion
When I trav­el the very last mile
To know I’ve meant some­thing to some­one
And caused those in sor­row to smile.
I know that I shall be hap­py,
If in the heart of just one,
I can leave one lin­ger­ing mem­o­ry
Of some­thing good that I have done.”

I want Joe Ann Dove and the com­mu­ni­ty to know that she has suc­ceed­ed through her jour­ney, and I write this to share that belief.  Joe Ann Dove is a com­mu­ni­ty hero, and the results of her efforts con­tin­ue to serve oth­ers today.  Joe Ann, I may mourn your pass­ing, but believe me when I say that I tru­ly cel­e­brate your life and your con­tri­bu­tion to our com­mu­ni­ty.  I appre­ci­ate all you did, and I wish you peace!