By BRANDON WORF

Hays Daily News

Fort Hays State University is once again expanding its specialized services offered by the Department of Communication Disorders. The Herndon Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic has received a $10,000 grant from the Scottish Rite to help enhance the clinic' ability to serve the community and enrich the education experience for students in the department.

In an announcement Friday morning, Amy Finch, associate professor in the Department of Communication Disorders, welcomed the certification of the Herndon Clinic as a RiteCare clinic, and the grant accompanying it.

"As a representative of Fort Hays State and the Herndon Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, I would personally like to welcome the Scottish Rite to Fort Hays State and to the city of Hays," Finch said. "This month is Better Speech and Hearing Month, and we couldn't find any better way of marking that than by announcing the Herndon Clinic's RiteCare certification."

Finch said the grant would provide financial assistance so that the Herndon Clinic can make summer language reading groups more accessible to children, and that the RiteCare certification would allow the clinic to deliver better on-going treatment to both children and adults.

"This partnership between the Herndon Clinic and the Scottish Rite Foundation will have an immediate and ongoing benefit for children within Hays and the surrounding area," Finch said. "Eventually, it will influence the services provided by our graduates as they seek positions in other parts of Kansas as well as outside of Kansas. I can assure you that the money will be entirely well spent."

Jeff Briggs, dean of the College of Health and Life Sciences, noted FHSU's history of providing assistive, developmental and rehabilitative services to the regional community.

"There are already a few RiteCare clinics in the state, as Wichita State has one, and KU's two campuses are both RiteCare certified, and FHSU now serves that distinction as well," Briggs said. "This exciting partnership with the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, establishing a RiteCare Clinic on our campus, will allow us to extend services through the Geneva Herdon Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, providing language and literacy services to children in need."

Hugh W. Gill III, the Sovereign Grand Inspector General in Kansas and president of the Kansas Scottish Rite Foundation, formally announced the grant along with a contingent of Scottish Rite representatives from across the state.

"In the early 1950's in Colorado, the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry initiated a program to help children with speech and language disorders," Gill said. "The results obtained from this program led to the establishment of RiteCare clinics to provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment of those disorders and learning disabilities." He said that as a result, countless children across the country have been helped by improvements in speech, language, and literacy skills through clinics such as the Herndon Clinic along with Scottish Rite Foundation support.

"The Kansas Scottish Rite Foundation is pleased to be a part of the team in northwest Kansas," Gill said.

For more information on the expansion of existing services and the establishment of new ones in the Herndon Clinic, and for information on summer language and literacy groups for pre-school and school-aged children, call (785)-628-5366.