by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
(Jacksonville’s legal community lost a member of the family last week when Fran Peacock Coker, 58, died in a fire. Fran was married to Howard Coker, a partner at Coker, Myers, Schickel, Sorenson & Green and former president of The Florida Bar. We talked to Fran in November 2004 about her work for the mayor’s youth literacy program. That story is reprinted here in her memory. The Coker family requests memorials be made to the Rally Jacksonville! Fund at the Community Foundation Inc., 121 W. Forsyth St., Suite 900, Jacksonville, FL 32202. Write “Fran’s Fund” on the memo line of the check.)
Fran Coker was used to making up stories. She used them to put her children to bed, then to engage her grandchildren’s imagination. Coker is still making up stories, but now she writes for an audience of 8,000.
The children’s books Coker writes for Mayor John Peyton’s Rally Jacksonville! youth literacy campaign are designed not just to teach children but to help them believe they can read. But when Coker was approached about writing an 11-book series for 8,000 four-year-olds, she admits to suffering her own doubts.
“I felt like I’m supposed to be at the part of my life where I’m supposed to relax and calm down and do grandma things,” said Coker. “The whole thing has been so surprising to me. But I think that’s a better way to spend my time, surprising myself instead of sitting back.”
That’s the message Coker wants kids to take away from her books: anything is possible. She thinks the first step to teaching kids to read is convincing them they can.
Appropriately, her first book for the mayor’s campaign is titled “I can read.”It takes the kids on a tour of Jacksonville, teaching them how to read and pronounce landmarks like the downtown bridges, beaches and parks. The idea is to familiarize children with their City and instill a sense of community while they learn.
She’s almost as excited to help the kids learn about their city as she is to help them read. The fourth generation Jacksonvillian said the City has a great story to tell. Her opinion of the City has only grown as she’s watched the cooperation that makes the literacy campaign possible.
The City spends about $10 million a year through its Children’s Commission to prepare child care centers to teach, to print and distribute the books and other educational tools and to host book club meetings at local libraries. City Hall’s efforts have been supported by commitments from the private community. Toyota, CSX, Blue Cross Blue Shield are among the sponsors. Clear Channel donates a half hour of broadcast time at 7:30 Saturday morning for televised retellings of Coker’s books. Coker sounds like a proud grandmother when she talks about the public and private effort that goes into the book club.
“I’m proud of all of them for committing to these kids and their generosity to these kids,” said Coker. “I think the mayor’s mother did a really good job. She taught him to love to read and to love children.”
It’s not hard to find the inspiration for Coker’s stories. Her house is reminiscent of the fantastic landscape of one of her books. Visitors step over hopscotch boxes etched in chalk in her driveway, past the fountain filled with her grandchildren’s fish. The door opens to a 15-foot-tall stuffed polar bear with a sign that reads: “Don’t feed the bears. We’re stuffed.”
Since her family provides the inspiration for her books, it’s fitting that they all play a part in the books’ production. The material is tested on her three grandchildren. Her daughter, Kelly, herself an educator, writes parents’ guides that accompany the books. Husband Howard, a trial attorney and senior partner in the firm of Coker, Myers, Schickel, Sorenson and Green serves as copyeditor, critic and the inspiration for the character “Grandpa,” in some of the stories.
“It gives me such a thrill when I see him laugh at one of my books,” said Coker. “I have the past president of the Florida Bar reading my children’s book.”
Howard also serves as makeshift agent for his wife of 38 years. She shakes her head when she thinks about her husband’s plan for a nationwide tour.
“He’s ready to take me national, he talks about doing these books for Washington, Atlanta. I’m just trying to get 12 books written about Jacksonville,” she said.