Scottish Rite honors ECU students and its longtime partner, ECU’s Speech and Hearing Clinic

GREENVILLE, N.C. —   Two East Carolina University students received awards April 29 from North Carolina’s Scottish Rite, which has had a 37-year partnership with ECU’s Speech and Hearing Clinic.

ECU students and cadets Jeffrey McGowan, U.S. Army, and Danielle Daley, U.S. Air Force, received the 2009 Scottish Rite Americanism Awards. McGowan is a Greenville native and undergraduate business management major. Daley was born in Tulsa, Okla., before moving to Raleigh about eight years ago. She also is an undergraduate business management major.

Left to right, Dr. Betty Smith leads a tour of ECU’s Speech and Hearing Clinic with U.S. Army Maj. Alexcie Herbert, Cadet Jeffrey McGowan, Al Morris, William Dill, William Brunk, Cadet Danielle Daley and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Patricia Sergey.

Dr. William Brunk, a Raleigh-area orthodontist who serves as the Scottish Rite’s Sovereign Grand Inspector General in North Carolina, congratulated the students on their awards. Patriotism toward country is one of the teachings of Scottish Rite, he said.

“We are honored to be with you,” Brunk said. “We know you will do a lot of good for our world and country.”

As part of the award, cadets and their campus commanders U.S. Army Maj. Alexcie Herbert, executive officer of the ECU Army ROTC, and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Patricia Sergey, commander of the ECU Air Force ROTC, along with Brunk and Brother William Dill of the New Bern Scottish Rite toured ECU’s clinic. Leading the tour was Dr. Betty Smith, director of the clinic, Dr. Gregg Givens, chair of communication sciences and disorders, and Dr. Stephen Thomas, dean of the College of Allied Health Sciences. Dr. Phyllis N. Horns, vice chancellor for ECU health sciences, and Dr. Marianna Walker, associate professor and the Bremer Distinguished Professor in Language & Learning Disorders, joined the group for lunch.

Since 1972, North Carolina Scottish Rite Masons have given almost $1 million to ECU’s Scottish Rite Childhood Language Disorders and Dyslexia clinical program. More than 4,500 children have been seen in the clinic since that time. “Because of the generosity of the Scottish Rite, these individuals receive a $1,200 evaluation for $35, and they contribute to the education of our students,” Givens said.

Speech and language services are provided by faculty and graduate students in the ECU Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the College of Allied Health Sciences. The Scottish Rite program specializes in diagnostic evaluations for children and adolescents who are suspected of having or have been diagnosed with a language-based learning disability including problems with pre-reading skills, reading, writing, understanding speech or expressing themselves.

The clinic had been in an annex beside Belk Building, which had been home to the ECU College of Allied Health Sciences before moving to the Health Sciences Building on west campus in 2006. It is considered one of the premiere facilities in the southeastern United States, Givens said. 

Masons first got involved with speech and language disorders about 50 years ago because of the needs of a Colorado boy with dyslexia. The idea quickly spread across the nation.

“One of the basics of our organization is to be charitable. Our purpose is to help society be a little bit better,” Brunk said. The fraternal organization supports speech, language and hearing clinics at Appalachian State University, the Scottish Rite Center in Charlotte and at ECU.