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Monday, November 12, 2001
Woman aids area with crises
Mary Casey was key in regional ambulance, weather services
By Sara Lee Fernandez
Caller-Times

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

Mary Casey, a nominee for the Caller-Times/Channel 6 Jefferson Volunteer Awards, helped start up the Corpus Christi weather office and ambulance services in Aransas County.

   Mary Casey could have taken things easy after her husband, Jim, retired to his hometown of Rockport in 1975, but instead she was one of the key women responsible for funding an ambulance service for Aransas County.
   "I felt the need to find something to do to help the community," said the 78-year-old.
   What the Women's Committee of the Chamber of Commerce did was use their talents in making things to raise the money. The organization is also known as the "Little Old Ladies in Tennis Shoes."
   "She really was instrumental of getting the ambulance service and after 20 years our paramedics are the top of the state," said friend and co-volunteer Molly Mulle.
   Before the Aransas County Medical Services was created, people needing to go to the hospital either got a ride with family or friends or took a more unusual form of transportation.
   "If it was bigger than a Band-Aid," Mulle said, "you took the hearse from Charlie Marshall (Funeral Homes)."
   Casey and the other women went from making Christmas decorations in their homes to having a storefront.
   In 1984 the Enterprise Boutique opened. Casey is active in the day-to-day operations, is a member of the EMS board of directors and the treasurer for the Aransas County Medical Service.
   Casey has been a part of the Coastal Bend community for decades. Her family moved to Corpus Christi in 1941.
   During World War II Casey became one of the first women in the area to work as a weather observer for the National Weather Service. She and two other women opened the weather office in Corpus Christi.
   She also has been a volunteer for the American Cancer Society and served as the chairwoman of the Embassy Wives Speakers Bureau when her husband, who died in October 2000, worked at the U.S. Embassy in London.
   Her husband was an analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency.
   Casey has been recognized as part of the 11th annual Caller-Times/Channel 6 Jefferson Volunteer Awards, which celebrate community volunteerism.
   Nominations are accepted throughout the year, and a community panel each month selects four honorees to be featured in articles and on Channel 6 News.
   In April, 10 Jefferson Award winners - selected from among the volunteers featured throughout the year - will receive bronze medallions minted by the Franklin Mint for their efforts to enrich their communities and the lives of their neighbors.


Contact Sara Lee Fernandez at 886-3767 or fernandezs@caller.com

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