By STEVE KEIL
DSNWK
Developmental Services of Northwest Kansas announces a newly established fund in memory of co-founder Dr. Homer B. Reed, Sr.
The fund will help support the nearly 500 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities from the 18 counties DSNWK serves.
The descendants of Dr. Homer B. Reed, Sr. are setting up the memorial fund with a goal to raise $50,000 by the end of 2018. An anonymous donor will match up to $20,000 of all donations.
DSNWK, formerly the Homer B. Reed Adjustment and Training Center, opened its doors February 5, 1968 as one of the first workshops serving those with IDD in Kansas, and one of 40 in the U.S. DSNWK’s Reed Developmental Center is a living memorial to Dr. Reed’s work in Hays.
“This is an exciting re-connection for DSNWK to its past,” said DSNWK President/CEO Jerry Michaud. “This fundraising effort is reflective of the care and support of Homer B Reed and his family, friends and colleagues who desire to carry on the legacy started fifty years ago, supporting the mission of DSNWK into the future.”
To donate send checks made out to DSNWK with a memo of “Homer B. Reed” to Steve Keil, PO Box 310, Hays, KS 67601, or give online at www.dsnwk.org. DSNWK is a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
More about Dr. Homer B. Reed, Sr.
Dr. Reed was a professor of education and psychology at Fort Hays State University (called Fort Hays Kansas State College at the time) from 1929 to 1956, and was the Chairman of the Psychology Department for many years. Before coming to Hays he taught at the University of Illinois, University of Idaho, (where he was asked to leave that institution after expressing his views that women should be granted the right to vote), Colorado College of Education, University of Pittsburgh, and Gunnison, Colo.
He attended Goshen College, earned his A.B. and A.M degrees at Indiana University, and in 1912, the Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Chicago. He also did special graduate work at Columbia University, NY, in 1913, and was a Fellow in Psychiatry at Kansas University Medical Center, 1951-52.
His dissertation “The Morals of Monopoly and Competition,” was cited by Supreme Court Justice Brandeis in one of the earliest cases to reach the Supreme Court arising out of the creation of the Federal Trade Commission. It is not clear, however, that Dr. Reed was ever aware of this application of his early work, and his subsequent research interests were all in psychology.
He was co-founder of the Fort Hays Psychological Clinic, helped organize and promote the High Plains Mental Health Clinic, and co-authored the once widely used Reed-Tracy Teaching Tests.
FHSU Psychologists within the department, including Dr. Reed, developed and operated the clinic specializing in the diagnostic assessment of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Those clinical services were made available to children in western Kansas including their families and their schools.
With the advent of World War II, the psychologists at FHSU were drafted into military service and the clinic that they developed became Dr. Reed’s responsibility. He had to refine his clinical skills and he had to make himself available in facing the problems that any psychological clinic presents. In doing this his interests in psychology changed. He not only worked with individuals referred to the clinic, he also worked actively with the state legislature in developing laws to identify and serve handicapped children. He maintained these interests for the remainder of his years as a psychologist.