FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2005

CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu

LOCAL WOMAN FEATURED ON JANE PAULEY SHOW ABOUT ILLITERACY

Karen Walker, a Des Moines resident who learned to read at age 44 with the help of Drake University's Adult Literacy Center, will be featured on the Jane Pauley Show on Wednesday, March 16. The program, which airs at 3 p.m. weekdays on WOI-TV in Des Moines, focuses on the plight of the 90 million adults in the United States who are functionally illiterate.

A producer for the Jane Pauley Show contacted Walker, now a volunteer tutor at Drake's Adult Literacy center, after a story about her appeared in Des Moines Register on Feb. 5. Walker and her husband, David, flew to New York City and were interviewed by Pauley on Feb. 17 in front of a studio audience in Rockefeller Center.

"I was nervous but excited at the same time because it was my first time on TV," Walker said. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. TV is a good way to get the word out that everybody has the right to learn to read, whether you're 5 years old or 80, and that there's help out there."

In addition to Walker, the Jane Pauley Show features Curtis Aikens, a well-known TV chef who learned how to read at age 26 and spent his school years hiding his problem, along with Donald Chiapetta, who worked for 25 years as executive vice president of a national food chain but didn't learn to read until he was 40. Walker joins these two men in describing how they hid their literacy problems for years and how they finally got help.

For Walker, it was her intense desire to improve her literacy skills so she could help her grandson learn to read as well as a poster offering free tutoring at the Drake Adult Literacy Center. At the center, she mastered reading skills through the phonetics-based, multisensory Wilson Reading System. She now devotes her Tuesday and Thursday evenings to helping others learn to read at the center.

Since 1976, the Drake Adult Literacy Center has offered free tutoring to adults with such low literacy skills that they cannot complete job applications, figure out their bills, read medicine instructions correctly or apply for job promotions. Although the center has 65 volunteer tutors, more are needed to serve the people on the center's waiting list. Tutors receive training and then meet one-on-one with a client twice a week at the center, which is housed in Drake's School of Education at 3206 University Ave.

For more information about the center's services and volunteer opportunities, contact Anne Murr at (515) 271-3982 or anne.murr@drake.edu.

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