Category Archives for People

Senator Bob Dole’s legacy – putting nation over politics

Politician, War Hero, Senator Bob Dole Dies at 98

Published on December 7, 2021 in RINewsToday

Bob Dole a seriously wounded World War II hero, a Kansas politician who served in the House from 1961 to 1969 and the U.S. Senate from 1969 until 1996, who unsuccessfully ran as the Republican candidate against Bill Clinton for President in 1996, dies at age 98, after a long illness.  

According to the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, Senator Robert J. Dole died in his sleep on early Sunday morning.  While no cause of death was reported the former Senator was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer last February.  While funeral arrangements have not been announced, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Dole, one of the longest serving Republicans in the Senate’s history who served as Senate Majority leader from 1985 to 1987 and from 1995 to 1996, will lie in state in the United States Rotunda on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021.  A formal arrival and departure ceremony will be held on Thursday morning.  Dole will join just 34 others, including government officials and military officers, who have had this honor in the U.S. Capitol since 1852.

“Putting his life on the line to defend our nation, he was awarded two Purple Hearts for his valor and sacrifice on the battlefield – and, when he came home, served as an inspiration to millions of Americans living with disabilities.  From the Well of the House to the Floor of the Senate, as a presidential candidate and as an elder statesman, he was one of the foremost advocates for our servicemembers, veterans and military families,” stated Pelosi, in a statement announcing Dole being given the nation’s highest honor to lie in state in the Capitol.   

“Senator Dole exemplified the Greatest Generation, and while I never had the pleasure of serving in the Senate with him, his reputation and his achievements, and most of all his character proceeded him, said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “I always admired his steadfast advocacy for Americans with disabilities, and his love for this country,” he added.

Adds Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, “Whatever their politics, anyone who saw Bob Dole in action had to admire his character and his profound patriotism. Those of us who were lucky to know Bob well ourselves admired him even more. A bright light of patriotic good cheer burned all the way from Bob’s teenage combat heroics, through his whole career in Washington, and through the years since.”

Fixing Social Security

Back in the late 1970s, President Ronald Reagan reacted to Social Security’s short-and long-term financing crisis funding crisis by charging the National Commission on Social Security Reform (NCSSR), chaired by Alan Greenspan, by making recommendations on strengthening the program’s financial viability to Congress.

There were NCSSR members of the bipartisan Commission who did not believe there was an impending fiscal crisis, believing that it was being politically blown out of proportion.  Like today, there were philosophical differences in how to keep Social Security solvent.  

The political polarization that resulted in hammering out recommendations kept the NCSSR from making its original deadline to issue its report. Reagan was forced to extend the life of the Commission, and this ultimately gave time for the 15 members to reach a compromise.

However, even with the NCSSR compromise, there was still political gridlock in Congress as to how to fix Social Security. But a chance reading of Dole’s article on Social Security published in the January 3, 1983 issue of the New York Times, brought Senator Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) together on the Senate floor with the Kansas Senator. Ultimately it was these two seasoned Senators who put political differences aside to draft a bipartisan compromise to allow the passage of NCSSR’s recommendations, including taxation of Social Security benefits and increasing the retirement age for receiving full benefits.

Dole and Moynihan’s “Gang of Seven”, including three NCSSR members and two Reagan advisors, came up with a politically acceptable time frame of payroll tax increases and spending reforms that both the Democrats and Republicans could accept. Meeting outside the halls of Congress, the so-called “Gang of Seven,” Dole, Moynihan, three other members of the Greenspan Commission and two Reagan advisors, came up with a timetable of payroll tax increases and spending reforms that legislators of both parties could accept. On April 20, 1983, President Reagan signed the Social Security reform into law. 

Reaching Across the Aisle

In a statement, President Joe Biden noted that even though he and Dole often disagreed on issues during his time in the Senate, “he never hesitated to work with me or other Democrats when it mattered most.”

“He and Ted Kennedy came together to turn Bob’s lifelong cause into the Americans with Disabilities Act — granting tens of millions of Americans lives of greater dignity,” said Biden.

“When he managed the bill to create a federal holiday in the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. — a bill that many in his own caucus opposed — I will never forget what he said to our colleagues: “No first-class democracy can treat people like second-class citizens,” noted Biden.

Finally, Biden noted Dole’s support of  another bipartisan effort, the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. This initiative provided school meals and food for nursing mothers and young children. “It saved the lives of countless young people who would otherwise have died in infancy — and brought dignity to tens of millions of families at home and abroad. This work, for Bob, was about more than passing laws. It was written on his heart,” said Biden.

Known for his integrity and trustworthiness, this statesman, war veteran, patriot, knew how to work across the aisle to pass Senate bills that would help seniors, the disabled, and the needy, oftentimes in opposition to his caucus. He put the nation first above politics.

Hopefully, Congress can clearly see Dole’s political legacy of being bipartisan in legislating.  It’s not too late.   

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Ron St. Pierre back on-air. “Ron & Jen’s Great Escape” A Positive Podcast

Published in RINewsToday on April 23, 2021

One might say his career has come full circle from its early beginnings on a small radio station in Woonsocket, to programming and performing on air at popular Rhode Island radio stations, to serving as a sports anchor on television, as well. A familiar morning voice to many listeners, this ‘seasoned pro’ was heard on the local airwaves for years in various capacities – but this past December that sound went silent. But a new venture is about to launch to bring Ron’s voice – and that of Jen Brien – back to his listeners.

The new podcast will be called “Ron and Jen’s Great Escape”, and it is set to launch on Monday, May 3rd. You can listen live on Facebook and wherever you get your podcast.  

Reflecting on his time in the past “pandemic” year, St Pierre reflects on how he had to move his radio show on WHJJ into his home, affectionately called “Chez St. Pierre”, with his yellow lab, Hazel, nearby. He would share the daily news and local happenings oftentimes flavored with some Rhode Island humor or memories, which made his style unique and comforting, subtly (or sometimes not so subtly), reminding us of days gone by. But on December 31, 2020, St. Pierre’s radio contract ended, and i-Heart Broadcasting chose not to renew.

After decades spent in the radio and television business, this seasoned pro knew this was an all-too-familiar story in the field. He used the time to think about his next steps and new mountains to climb, and set his sight on hosting a podcast. St. Pierre understood that with time being a valuable commodity and people becoming busier, podcasts are becoming extremely popular. Audio content, like radio, allowed the listener to multitask.

Brandastic, a media marketing company, estimates that since 2005, more than 700,000 podcasts have been created, with over 30 million episodes of content – most of them for free. They say about 24 percent of the U.S. population has listened to a podcast, with over 155 million people listening to a podcast every week.

St. Pierre says about the impact of podcasts,  “AdAge.com says that podcasts are able to engage listeners in a way that traditional media can’t. When podcasters speak in a listener’s ear, it feels as if they’re being spoken to more directly,” he said.

St. Pierre will host the newly created podcast with Woonsocket native and longtime good friend Jen Brien, who has co-hosted shows with him on both WPRO and WHJJ. Brien brings years of talk show hosting to the new podcast. She has hosted talk shows on WRKO and WBZ in Boston and Cape Cod’s WXTK.

“Our goal is to provide an escape from the negativity that can overtake conversation about the day’s hot topics…an escape from the banal repetition all too often associated with talk radio. Our goal is a positive approach to news and lifestyle topics with an infusion of humor across the board,” says St. Pierre.

Hosting a podcast will give St. Pierre greater flexibility with his time and give him more freedom and creativity, he says, noting that “Podcasters are by far, the most loyal and engaged audience of any medium out there.”

Over Four Decades of Achievements for St. Pierre

After 43 years in the radio business, St. Pierre, who grew up in the Darlington area of Pawtucket has been a longtime fixture in the Rhode Island broadcast community.

One of his proudest professional achievements was being inducted into the Rhode Island Radio and Television Hall of Fame in 2010.

In 2017, St. Pierre’s home town embraced his broadcasting accomplishments by inducting him into the Pawtucket Hall of Fame at the Pawtucket Armory Arts Center. This award was given to him for going “above and beyond” in his achievements as the Pawtucket Hall of Fame Committee recognized his outstanding contributions and by “shining a positive light on the community.”

Radio started early for St. Pierre, beginning while a student at Rhode Island College, where he learned the ropes of TV production as a weekend cameraman for WJAR TV10 in Providence. In 1977, he began his radio career at WNRI in Woonsocket. His first major position was as Program Director for 920 WHJJ AM from 1982 to 1988, now known as NewsRadio 920. He was also part of The WHJJ Morning Show at that time, eventually serving as Program Director for both 920 WHJJ AM and its sister station, 94 HJY FM during the last year of this tenure.

During his time at WHJJ, St Pierre literally helped revolutionize talk radio in Rhode Island in terms of listenership and ratings. He recruited then-Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci for his first stint as a talk-show host at this time, while working with other local radio stalwarts such as Sherm Strickhouser and Steve Kass. His unassuming, authentic style and natural quick wit were enjoyed daily by tens of thousands of radio listeners in Rhode Island and neighboring Southeastern New England.

In 1988, Cap Cities-ABC hired St. Pierre to “flip” 630 WPRO from a music station to a Newstalk format and take on WHJJ. WPRO passed WHJJ in the Newstalk radio war in less than a year. St. Pierre eventually rose from Program Director to President and General Manager.

In his “spare” time, St. Pierre served as a weekend sports anchor for WPRI TV-12. During the early and mid-1990s, he managed several stations in Providence, before taking a series of management positions in West Palm Beach and the legendary WABC in New York City. He returned to Rhode Island radio in 1997.

He had a highly successful on-air and program-management tenure at WPRO 630 AM, enabling the station to rise to the apex of listenership and ratings in our state’s highly competitive radio market. The station’s hosts at that time included the legendary Salty Brine, along with the return of Buddy Cianci to the airwaves — with whom he co-hosted a highly successful afternoon drive-time show.

 Memories from St. Raphael Academy

Anyone who knew St. Pierre during the days he attended Pawtucket-based Saint Raphael Academy were sure he would end up in the broadcasting business. With his personality, wit and intelligence, his peers believed he would most likely end up in front of a microphone.

“In his high school yearbook profile, at St. Raphael Academy in 1973, Ron said his life’s goal was to become a sportscaster. So that career in the broadcast was always in his mind, but he opened it up a lot wider than any of us could have imagined,” says Ron Fournier, an advertising copywriter, who has known St. Pierre for over 40 years. “Ron is a virtual encyclopedia of comedy who has studied all the greats — from the Marx Brothers to the present day,” Fournier added. “That’s where his quick wit comes from. On the air, you never know what kind of quip or one-liner is coming next. But you know it’ll be a classic in his trademark. tongue-in-cheek style of humor.”

St. Pierre lives in East Greenwich with his wife, Patti, and their dog, Hazel.

Dr. Teresa Chopoorian: McKnight’s Women of Distinction Award winner

Published in the Pawtucket Times on February 22, 2021

After reviewing hundreds of submitted entries, an independent panel, composed of two dozen judges, selected 19 women, including Dr. Teresa J. Chopoorian, to be inducted into the McKnight’s Women of Distinction Hall of Honor as part of the program’s third annual class. 

Dr. Chopoorian serves as Vice President and Administrator of the Central Falls, RI-based Mansion Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and is a former Professor of Nursing and Chairs the City of Pawtucket Cancer Control Task Force.     

According to McKnight’s Long-Term Care News the Hall of Honor recognizes executive-level professionals who have made a significant impact in the skilled nursing or senior living industries.  Of the sixty women who have been inducted into the Distinction Hall of Honor since its inception in 2019, Dr. Chopoorian is the only Rhode Islander to receive this prestigious recognition. 

Considered the hallmark of recognition for women leaders in the seniors’ care and living industries, McKnight’s Women of Distinction honors are given in three categories: Rising Stars, Veteran VIPs, and the Hall of Honor. A Lifetime Achievement Award winner will also be announced in March.  The annual awards program is administered jointly by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News and McKnight’s Senior Living. The winners will be recognized in editions of the McKnight’s Daily Update and McKnight’s Daily Briefing newsletters.

All of this year’s honorees, working in the health care industry, will be celebrated during a May 18th virtual awards event.  The ceremony will take place the evening followed by a special McKnight’s educational forum for all professionals in the long-term care and senior living industries the next morning. 

The Life and Times of Dr. Chopoorian

Dr. Chopoorian was hired as an Instructor at Boston University School of Nursing after completing her master’s degree at this university in 1964.  She was promoted to Assistant Professor and recognized as Teacher of the Year in 1968.  

She left Boston University in 1970 to accept a professorship at Boston College to co-direct a Macy Foundation graduate program with Harvard Medical School, a novel initiative to prepare Clinical Nurse Specialists. The program was among the first graduate nursing curriculum in the country and served as a critical role model for forthcoming nurse practitioner programs. 

In 1974, Dr. Chopoorian joined the faculty of Boston State College Department of Nursing and began doctoral studies at Boston University in 1978.  Upon completion of her doctorate in 1982, she accepted a professorship at Northeastern University School of Nursing where she continued to teach and participate in the development of nursing practice.

Coming Back Home to Long Term Care

Dr. Chopoorian joined the Mansion after a 22-year career as a nursing educator.  Her career parallels the transformation of nursing home care as it has undergone generational change.  As nursing homes evolved from custodial care to a case mix of higher morbidities and a greater need to deal with an increasing population of younger residents and residents with mental illnesses, Dr Chopoorian’s career paralleled this transformation in unique ways.

Starting as a teenager working in her family’s business, a 76-bed nursing home on the border of Central Falls and Pawtucket, mill towns emerging from the flight of the textile industry, she was inspired to become a nurse.  She then chose the rigor of enrolling at Classical High School Providence, which laid a strong foundation of scholarship that would serve her well.   More importantly, this earliest choice illustrated a characteristic of always taking on the greater challenge.  

In 1986, Dr. Chopoorian joined the Mansion staff at a time of family crisis.  Her father was retiring as administrator soon after the passing of her mother. At a crossroad of whether to continue the development of a fruitful academic career or apply her clinical knowledge and nursing skills to a family business, she made the critical choice of leading the family’s nursing facility while caring for her father. A daunting choice on every level, leaving the security of an academic career for a business whose nature and regulatory landscape were dramatically different than two decades earlier when she helped her father as a nursing aide.   

Dr. Chopoorian’s family crisis thrust her into the role of Administrator; she led the Mansion as a quality provider of skilled care and rehabilitation services, consistently a 4 and 5-star rated facility.  In 2010, she was recognized as the first recipient of the Nightingale Nurse of the Year Award by the Rhode Island State Nurses Association, as a nurse in the role of nursing home administrator.

Dr. Chopoorian also became active in the greater community and participated in boards such as the Pawtucket YMCA and Samaritans of Rhode Island. But closest to her heart, she has a lifelong commitment to cancer prevention, and has become one of the strongest local voices for cancer prevention in her community.  As chair of the Cancer Control Task Force supported by the City of Pawtucket Mayor’s office, she instituted programs such as a Poetry Slam that has young local school students writing poems competitively on the theme of smoking cessation or prevention.

A Rising Star in the Nursing Profession 

After graduation from the College of Nursing at the University of Rhode Island in 1962, she started as a Staff Nurse at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston. Again, rising to the greater challenge, she enrolled in the Nursing Master’s program at Boston University.  It launched a career that would keep her in the mainstream of nursing education and growth, up to the present day to bring her full cycle to administering a family business and the challenges of passing it on to a third generation.

Dr. Chopoorian shared her pioneering work on education for nursing practice through her teaching, publishing and consulting as these programs became established. She was recognized for her work by the Massachusetts Nurses Association in 1974 – “Recognition of a Nurse Influencing the Directions of Professional Nursing Practice”. 

Perhaps the most prestigious recognition was her selection as the 9th recipient of the International Council of Nursing (ICN) Fellowship in 1978, the first US candidate to be selected from among its 44 member countries.

Among Dr. Chopoorian’s publications, one of special note is her article, “Reconceptualizing the Environment”, which called attention to the social, cultural, political and economic environmental factors that impact the practice of nursing. Published in 1986, it is still heavily cited by scholars in the field and pertinent to the dialog of nursing practice today.

She was appointed Fellow in the National Academy of Practice, Nursing in 1987.

Meeting the Challenges of COVID-19

Dr. Chopoorian is now practicing what she has preached over the years, applying her knowledge and skills to the practical matters of administering a skilled nursing care facility, and doing it in a manner that has earned her the recognition of her peers as Nightingale Nurse of the Year.

Early in March 2020 as it became clear that nursing homes were ground zero in an epic battle; she consulted with her Medical and Nursing Director and decided to close admission of anyone into the facility who was not already in the facility until October of 2020, when community spread overcame the facility staff’s most resolute of defenses. The Mansion is one of only three facilities in Rhode Island with this record in the midst of what was designated as the state’s hot zone. The residents and staff who tested positive have since quickly passed quarantine with no deaths or illnesses. A major practice achievement as we now head into a time of protection with the Pfizer, Moderna, and other versions of the COVID-19 vaccine, and are hopefully home free.