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Kerrville civic leaders Sam Barker and Bob Waller have been named to the board of directors of the Hill Country Veterans Council, a group advocating healthcare for the estimated 18,500 former service men and women in the area.
Barker is a retired lieutenant colonel who moved to the Hill Country after retiring from the Army and working for a time in the insurance industry in Corpus Christi. He and his wife Caroline have lived in Kerrville for 15 years. He served two years as president of the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity which provides low-cost housing for persons who can't afford to buy homes through regular financial channels, and volunteers at both the Kerrville Medical Center of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Raphael Community Clinic. A daughter, Shannon, moved to Kerrville recently with her two children after retiring from the Air Force.
Waller, a veteran of Marine Corps service in Vietnam, is head of the local branch of Broadway Bank, Chairman of the Board of the Kerr County YMCA, Chairman-elect of the Kerrville Area Chamber of Commerce, Immediate Past President of the Kerrville Noon Rotary Club, board member of the Kerr County United Way Schreiner University Business Advisory Board, and member of Habitat for Humanity and Kerrville Board of Realty committees.
He and his wife, Sana, moved to Kerrville in 2001. Previously, he had been president and chief executive officer of financial institutions in Dallas and Austin.
Retired Army Brig. Gen. Walter Schellhase of Kerrville is president of the Hill Country Veterans Council, whose other board members are Jud Ashmore, Dr. Dan Bacon, Joseph Benham, Bennie Hyde, Alan Hill, Bernard Jesko and Bob Weinberg from the Kerrville-Ingram-Hunt-Tierra Linda area; Gene. Higgins of Comfort and Jack Ledford and Joe Strange from Fredericksburg.
The Veterans Council was formed in the mid-1990s to coordinate and lead the fight to keep the Kerrville VA Hospital from being closed or converted into a nursing home, forcing area veterans to go to San Antonio for medical treatment to which as former service men and women they're entitled.
Further information about the Veterans Council and other data of interest to veterans is available as the organization's website at www.hcvc.org or by telephone at 830-8961157.
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