Cathy (Cook) Sepko

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Biography

The biography for Cathy Cook is empty. What can you add? Catherine Lucille Cook was born in Welch, McDowell County, WV, on March 13, 1949, to Quentin Ralph Cook and Lucille Marie Gunter Cook. Her parents grew up in Pineville, WV, in families that lived near each other, but they had never dated in high school. Ralph became a Marine in August 1943, the summer before his senior year in high school. Lucille had to drop out of school during her senior year due to a family crisis. She went to Baltimore to work during WWII. In 1945, Ralph was at Quantico at the end of WWII, waiting for a discharge when they ran into each other. They married there a year later in May 1946 on the day he was discharged. They returned to Pineville. They bought a home in 1950 in the Smith-Lonker Addition where Cathy grew up.

Cathy attended Pineville Grade School, Pineville Junior High, and graduated from Pineville High as an honor's graduate in May 1967. She attended West Virginia Tech, where she graduated with a BA in Secondary English Education in December 1970. She married her high school boyfriend, Kenneth Robert Sepko, on December 27, 1969, at Cook Memorial Baptist Church.

After four years of teaching, first in Lowndes County, Mississippi, and then in Kanawha County, WV, she had a son Micah Andrew Sepko in March 1975. She had begun a master's degree in Columbus, Mississippi, at Mississippi State College for Women while her husband was in pilot training at Columbus AFB. During 1975-77, she completelyted a MA in English / Mass Communication at Marshall University. She taught as an adjunct English teacher at West Virginia State, but returned to full-time teaching when her son started school. During the next eight years, she was a volunteer and then full-time Director of Christian Education and Youth at Perrow Presbyterian.

Her husband's job situation changed, and the family moved to Greenville County, SC, in 1988, and she returned to teaching for Greenville County Schools. In 1994, she enrolled in the PhD program in Curriculum and Instruction--Secondary English, and completed that degree in December 1998. She spent twenty years teaching English at North Greenville College. She became the Dean of the College of Humanities there. In 2005, the school moved to North Greenville University. She retired in December 2016 due to health issues.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Cathy Cook at registration.