Des Moines 1989
Dr. Cooley is a graduate of Coon Rapids, Iowa High School, with his undergraduate college education at Simpson and a degree from Buena Vista College. He holds an Honorary Doctorate from Morningside College. He was a commissioned naval officer with the Armed Forces during World War II. After returning to public life, he coached football and track at Nevada, Iowa until 1950, at which time he served for one year as a professor at Grinnell College. From 1951 through 1954, he served as assistant to the President of Grinnell. In the spring of 1954, Cooley accepted the assignment as Executive secretary of the Iowa Girls’ High School Athletic Union, which embraced one interscholastic activity, basketball. In the following 35 years, the program has been expanded to include interscholastic track and field, softball, golf, swimming, tennis, volleyball, and cross country. The program being the leader and envy throughout the United States in girls’ interscholastic athletic development. In 1963, the Board of Directors of the Iowa High School Speech Association asked that he serve as their Executive Secretary. He has served as their Executive Vice-President in addition to the Athletic Union Leadership. In addition Dr. Cooley: 1. Serves as a member of the Drake Relays Executive Committee. 2. Has been named to the United States Track and Field Hall of Fame. 3. Served as chairperson of the Iowa Heart Association. 4. Serves on the administrative Board of the Family Church. 5. Has served as Vice Chairperson of the Iowa Games since its conception. 6. Is a director of the First Federal Bank of Storm Lake. 7. Serves as an appointed member of the United States Olympic Committee. While serving as national president of the United States Track and Field Federation, an organization embracing the school-college community of the United States, his leadership was substantial in resolving the two decade conflict over control of the nation’s amateur track and field administration, successfully merging the conflicting parties into the Athletic Congress of the United States, a governing body for both national and international amateur track and field. Dr. Cooley did have one small request. The record book from the Boy’s Iowa High School Athletic Association records states his having been the coach of two state championship teams in track and field – 1949 and 1950. “This is of significant memory and pride to me,” he said, “as I coached high school track four years, and the team winning state championships two of the four. This proves I am not totally directed toward the distaff side of high school athletics.” A long-standing family commitment to church and school education surfaced upon the death of his wife of 37 years in 1982, when, along with his two children created sustaining memorials with an Iowa college, high school, and the family church. In 1987 he was remarried to the now Wendy Wykoff-Cooley.