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Date 7-6-06
Contact David Tisdale 601.266.4499
WITH PHOTO
Hattiesburg – A $250,000 gift to the DuBard School Foundation Trust
will benefit the school by the same name at the University of Southern
Mississippi.
The gift comes from the estate of the DuBard School for Language
Disorders’ late founder, Dr. Etoile DuBard, and will help support
the school’s mission, said school director Dr. Maureen Martin.
Founded in 1962, the DuBard School serves children with significant
communication disorders from 15 counties and 20 school districts
in south central Mississippi through use of the Association Method
in direct clinical services and professional training.
“The DuBard School and the children it serves were always the focus
of Dr. DuBard’s life, and I think this gift is a wonderful legacy.
The generosity of her and her family will be long remembered by
the school and the university,” said Jim Yelverton, interim president
of the DuBard School Foundation Trust.
Martin said the gift from the DuBard estate may be used as seed
money for the development of an endowment. “It will be a tremendous
asset to the school and to the university as it strives for excellence
as a world-class institution,” she said.
The DuBard School also serves as a practicum/volunteer/observation
site for 30-60 Southern Miss students each semester, including those
from speech and hearing sciences, nursing, science education, human
performance and recreation, social work and other disciplines.
In addition to establishing what is now known as the DuBard School,
Etoile DuBard also served as a charter faculty member of the Southern
Miss Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. She held national
certifications in speech-language pathology, audiology and education
of the deaf, in addition to elementary education, and taught in
public schools in Mississippi and Florida. During World War II,
she served in the United States Navy.
DuBard held membership in numerous professional organizations and
also was a founding member of the International Multisensory Structured
Language Education Council, a national accrediting organization.
“The gift says a lot about what she believed in and what she wanted
her life to stand for,” said DuBard’s nephew, Bill DuBard of Terry.
“She spent her life working with kids who had speech disorders to
help them learn to communicate and function in society, and this
gift is just another example of her devotion to the school and its
mission.”
For more information about the DuBard School, call 601.266.5223
or visit http://www.usm.edu/dubard/.
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