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With Lucy happily established in a school near enough so that he could visit her frequently, her father turned again to the problem of financing operation of the workshop for retarded children in Shreveport. For advice he called upon Rotarian W. J. Clark, veteran of many a local fund-raising campaign. Clark advised on the timing and planning of the first campaign, which netted some $10,000 in 1954. These funds were used to engage three teachers and three aides for the workshop.

Rotarians, as individuals or as heads of business and industrial firms, contributed more than 50 percent of the funds in that initial drive. The Shreveport Rotary Club also is paying the expenses of one youngster at the workshop on a scholarship basis. One Rotarian, C. L. Perry, serves as an administrative counsellor, while another, W. R. Barrow, acts as liaison man between the Caddo-Bossier Association and the Community Council on such matters as fund raising, programs, and projected plans for the future.

Never-failing help and encouragement also have been forthcoming from H. C. Anderson. Past Director of Rotary International, and from E. Allen Gillispie, current District Governor and long-time Secretary of the Shreveport Club. Both have lent the official approval of the Shreveport Rotary Club to undertakings of the Caddo-Bossier Association and also assisted In the successful $15,000 fund-raising campaign of 1955, concluded in December.

While the local workshop thrives and provides socialization and habit training for mentally retarded children in the two-parish area around Shreveport, the residential training school at Clarks, in Caldwell Parish, also is flourishing with the help of Rotarians. Q. T. Hardtner, president of the famed Urania Lumber Company of Urania, just seven miles south of Clarks, hauls equipment and supplies to the school without charge.

Word of the spectacular success of the Caddo-Bossier Association for Mentally Retarded Children has been spreading rapidly, and Morley Hudson has been called upon to assist in the formation of local associations in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and adjoining States. He spends virtually as much time on the road in behalf of mentally retarded children as he does behind the desk of his own office.

Through all the long months of his often-discouraging efforts (which were later softened a bit by the arrival a year ago of a third daughter, Courtney, who is perfectly normal), Rotarian Hudson has been fully aware of the fact that none of the special classes, none of the workshop facilities, can benefit his own little daughter. Lucy always will hover midway between life and death in the land of the living dead.

"I'd give my right eye just to hear her call me 'Daddy,'" he says. "Since there is virtually nothing I can do to help Lucy, the next best thing is to help other mentally retarded children. I used to ask myself why this had happened to me. I have the answer now."