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Parkinsn List Member Peggy Willocks receives national award for Parkinson's
advocacy work


Photo by Kristen Luther
Peggy Willocks, former principal of Harold McCormick Elementary School, sits
on the back porch of her home on Max Jett Road. Willocks recently received
the Milly Kondracke Award for Outstanding Advocacy for Parkinson's disease
awareness and research.

   By Julie Fann
star staff
   [log in to unmask]

   Peggy Willocks, former principal of Harold McCormick Elementary School,
has received the Milly Kondracke Award for Outstanding Advocacy for
Parkinson's disease awareness and research.
   FOX News journalist Morton Kondracke, who chronicled his wife Milly's
struggle with Parkinson's disease in his 2001 book entitled "Saving Milly,"
presented the award bearing his wife's name to Willocks on April 13 along
with ABC's Chris Matthews; CNN's Wolf Blitzer, and FOX News journalist Fred
Barnes. A film version of "Saving Milly" aired on CBS earlier this month.
   "It feels kind of unbelievable, and I keep pinching myself. I'm humbled by
it. I know there are more deserving people," Willocks said Wednesday during
an interview at her home.
   The Milly Kondracke Award has been presented annually at the Morris K.
Udall Awards in Washington for the past four years to an advocate who
demonstrates strength of spirit and commitment to advocacy similar to Milly,
who put a public face on the disease that plagues more than one million
Americans.
   Diagnosed with Parkinson's nearly 12 years ago, Willocks was named
Tennessee Principal of the Year in 1997. In 1998, she took disability
retirement due to advancement of the disease.
   She was one of six people world-wide to receive experimental brain surgery
in Atlanta in 2000, which she attributes to some lessening of symptoms.
   Willocks is the state coordinator for the Parkinson's Action Network. She
is also president of the Northeast Tennessee Parkinson's Support Group and
founder of the Tri-State Young Onset Parkinson's Support Group, both located
in Johnson City.
   Willocks is a member of the Creativity Team for the planning of the 1st
World Congress for Parkinson's disease in 2006. She aspires to write a book
about helping children of those who have Parkinson's disease. "My children
went through the brain surgery with me and were scared to death. They didn't
know what was going to happen, and it's tough when you have a mamma that you
can't call on when you want to," Willocks said.
   Willocks said what's hard on her children and grandchildren now is that
she travels so much for Parkinson's advocacy. "It's tough because I'm gone
so much, but I sat in the house disabled and unable to even get out for a
long time, and I had to do something. I'm just not the type to sit still and
let cobwebs grow on me."
   Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who was unable to attend the awards
ceremony, wrote a letter to Willocks thanking her for her strength of
character and dedication to finding a cure. "You serve as a role model to us
all, and a spirit of service such as yours can only make a positive and
lasting impact in the lives of your fellow Americans," Frist said in the
letter.
   Willocks is also co-editor of a leading community Web site:
www.grassrootsconnection.com and is co-editor and founder of the Park Street
Network site: www.pwnkle.com. She is a member of the American Parkinson's
Disease Association speaker's bureau and a member of the Parkinson's
Pipeline Project, dedicated to accelerating the approval of new drugs and
treatments caught in the pipeline. Specifically, she serves as industry
advisor and clinical trial counselor.
   Parkinson's disease is a painful, degenerative neurological disorder that
causes disabling tremors, stiffness, slowness of movement, balance
impairment and other symptoms like pain, sleep disturbances and depression.
Ultimately, medications lose their effectiveness, leaving the patient unable
to move, swallow, speak or perform basic tasks of daily life.
   "The most misunderstood aspect of the disease is how one minute you can
look so normal and be so normal and the next minute you're like an invalid,"
Willocks said.

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