[Longtime Alexandria resident, Lou Cook, died on Friday, March 8, 2024]
Lou Cook was a mainstay during what I like to call the incubator days of the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria (SFA). Before we had a name, before we had any formal structure, before we had any money. When SFA was just a cherished idea in the hearts of a few Alexandria schools’ stalwarts, Lou was right there in the thick of it.
Lou did a lot of amazing things in her life. She and her husband, George, had a great partnership, and together they raised four great kids—Katie, Kelly, Andy, and Will. She worked for Alexandria businesses, she wrote for publications, she put energy into local events and politics.
I first got to know Lou during her long stint as a diligent member, and later chair, of the School Board of the Alexandria City Public Schools. In that role, she asked good questions and provided evenhanded leadership. I learned a lot by watching her work.
So I was thrilled when fellow (former) school board member Tim Elliott suggested to her that she join our tiny scholarship egg-hatching think tank. And more delighted when she said “yes.” She was finishing her tenure on the school board, and the timing was right.
Lou soon became the first Scholarship Fund (SFA) Board chair. During her time with the fund, Lou helped corral many of our first board members. She and George reached out to persuade their friends to become some of the first of the fund’s donors. She served on the first Gala Committees, and presided over the first SFA board meetings, community meetings and galas. In those early years she made presentations about the scholarship fund to her former colleagues on the School Board and to the Alexandria City Council.
Tiny, feisty, funny, smart, articulate, gracious Lou Cook carried the argument forward that our community needed to do more to help its young people get into, and succeed in, post-secondary education and in their lives thereafter. Our children need our support, she said! For years after she left the board, Lou came faithfully to the annual Awards Ceremony to present personally the scholarship that the SFA Board had established in her honor.
Now Lou is gone. Lou, Tim Elliott, and former Superintendent Bob Peebles—that first all-star SFA team—all gone. Though I did not see Lou often in these last years—our lives pulled us in different directions—I will miss Lou dreadfully, miss knowing that she is on this earth and that we still share our love of this community and its kids. She was tiny, but this community owes her a giant debt of gratitude for all she did on behalf of all the community’s children.
This spring the SFA will again celebrate its legacy by raising many thousands of new dollars and awarding many scholarships to deserving new graduates of the Alexandria City Public Schools.
Last year, the SFA awarded $1.4 million dollars in scholarships. A total of $623,000 first year scholarships were awarded to 207 graduates of ACPS entering over 60 colleges. The SFA also renewed $809,000 in scholarship awards to 272 alumni recipients to help them complete their college degree or career training. SFA remains one of the relatively few school-community programs like it in the country.
Well done, Lou. We are ever grateful for your efforts to get this program off the ground all those years ago.
We miss you.
Kitty Porterfield
Founding Director, SFA
March 10, 2024
