Carole Ann Hanks

Carole Ann (McDaniel) Hanks, A.B.C. ’22, was born Nov. 7, 1944, to an Army Air Corps family in Roswell, NM. She died April 9.

Hanks graduated from Jefferson City Senior High School in 1962. Among the top three students in her graduating class, she won a full-tuition scholarship to Washington University (WU), in St. Louis. At WU, Hanks earned her B.A. studying French and met her husband, Dorrel T. (Tom) Hanks Jr. Carole and Tom were married 58 years.

Hanks later went on to pursue a B.S. in nursing. That program led her through an M.A. in Public Health to certification as a nurse practitioner, then, after more study, she became a family nurse practitioner. Later, Hanks earned a Doctorate in Public Health from University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston.

Following that, Hanks held the position of director of the Memphis New Mothers Project, a program providing care for over 500 low-income mothers and children. The Project became the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), which provides free pre- and post-natal care for low-income mothers and children in over 1,000 communities throughout the U.S. (and now in several foreign countries). Dr. Hanks joined Dr. David Olds and Dr. Harriet Kitzman in the first large-scale (and successful) pilot study for what became the NFP.

Whether bearing and supporting her daughter Kirsten and son Thomas, supporting and reinforcing her husband Tom, moving up the scale of educational opportunities, directing a dedicated public health group of nurses and researchers in Memphis, teaching for years in Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing, working for years in the Waco-centered Heart of Texas Region MHMR Center, counseling PTSD sufferers in Waco’s VA facility or counseling Baylor students until her Alzheimer’s made her incapable of continuing — whatever Carole Hanks did for most of her adult life, she made the world a better place.