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Dr. Ralph Chase
1991 Distinguished Alumnus |
Dr. Ralph Chase, a local pediatrician and a 1941 graduate of San Angelo Junior College,
will be honored with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Angelo State University Ex-Students Association during 1991 Homecoming festivities Saturday, October 19. He will be a featured guest, along with the Retired Faculty Member of the Year, at the annual Ex-Students Luncheon at 11:30 a.m. in the Houston Harte University Center Ballroom and will be recognized at halftime during the Angelo State—Abilene Christian football game that night.
A Tom Green County native, Dr. Chase graduated from San Angelo High in 1939, from San Angelo Junior College in 1941, and the University of Texas at Austin in 1943 with a bachelor of arts in biology.
The United States Navy Seabees were so impressed by his biology credentials that they put him in charge of a construction crew in the South Pacific. He served as a lieutenant in the Civil Engineering Corps, U.S.N.R., in the South-west Pacific Theatre from 1943 to 1946. Chase returned from that experience with a collection of mementos and the determination to do something constructive.
This led him to Illinois, where he received his medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago in 1951. Also, on September 22, 1951, he married Virginia Berg in Kenilworth, Illinois. Ile completed his internship and residency in Illinois, and then they returned to Texas.
He and Virginia are the parents of two daughters, Priscilla and Julia, and a son, John, and they have seven grandchildren.
Best known to thousands of San Angelo children as Uncle Ralphie, his efforts on behalf of all children—but, especially, those who are underprivileged—have been innovative, untiring, and continual since he began his pediatric career in San Angelo.
He was the first doctor in Texas to hire a trained physician's assistant to help him extend medical care to children. He has pursued grants for feasibility studies for the establishment of a community children's clinic. In 1973, he was awarded a citation by the Texas Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 1978, Dr. Chase received an award of merit from the Texas Pediatric Society and was the Kaliski Honoree as Texas Pediatrician of the Year.
The San Angelo Day Nursery looks to him for volunteer medical care for the children they serve and his visionary leadership to help the nursery develop a "giant leap" in child-care. This community concept combines a day nursery for underprivileged children with an infirmary to care for the children of working parents, when those children are too sick to be in school, but too well for the hospital.
The San Angelo Chamber of Commerce is indebted to him for enlisting the medical community to support efforts to make San Angelo a major medical center. In January, 1989, the Chamber of Commerce honored Dr. Chase as the 1988 Citizen of the Year.
He was a driving force in helping Angelo State acquire the Roy E. Moon Distinguished Lectureship in Science Series and the Angelo Conununity Hospital Lectureship in the Humanities Series.
He helped establish Fort Concho as a major historical and tourist attraction for San Angelo and has served as president of the Community Council Board of Directors.
Chase is a diplomate with the American Board of Pediatrics; a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics; and a member of the Texas Pediatric Society, Concho Valley Medical Society, Texas Medical Association, and American Medical Association.
He is an active member of the Episcopal Church of Good Shepherd and serves as chairman of the Christian Education Committee. As a hobby, Dr. Chase writes historical essays.
As profiled in the 1991 Fall Alumni Magazine.
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