Carla Jo Cook

1961 - 2006

FORT WORTH -- Carla Jo Kittinger Cook, 45, a teacher, died Saturday, April 22, 2006, at a Fort Worth hospital.

Funeral: 2 p.m. Monday at Central Fellowship Church in Decatur, with Larry Mitchener officiating. Burial: East Bridgeport Cemetery. Pallbearers: Jack Tatum, Bill Tatum, John Hodges, Brandon Neeley, Tim Haney and Brian Smith.

Carla was born April 2, 1961, to Roselene Jones Cook and J. Paul Cook in Cleburne. She married Brian Webb Kittinger in 1983 and remarried in 2001 to Russell David Emerick.

Education was a way of life for Carla. She graduated from Stephenville High School in 1979. In 1984, she earned bachelor's degrees in French and English from the University of Texas at Austin. She then pursued and earned a master's degree in English from the University of North Texas in Denton in 1996. That same fall Carla began coursework for a Ph.D. in English at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. As a doctoral candidate at TCU with a specialization in rhetoric and composition, she worked with Dr. Richard Enos toward a dissertation that brought together classical rhetoric and contemporary classroom teaching.

Carla also shared her gift of knowledge through her teaching career. She taught courses in English and French at Springtown, Boyd and Decatur high schools and was, most recently, a French teacher at Como Montessori Middle School in Fort Worth. Carla taught college-level writing and literature courses at West Cooke County College in Gainesville and at Texas Wesleyan University and Tarrant County Community College, both in Fort Worth.

Carla also served her community. While living in Decatur, she formed a task force advocacy organization to prevent domestic violence. She also worked as a grants investigator and consultant for SIG Group in Fort Worth. As a breast cancer survivor, she took every opportunity to build relationships online with other survivors and to educate younger women about treatment and prevention. Carla was dearly loved; she touched the lives of everyone she knew, from family and friends to students, teachers, doctors and colleagues. She was a brilliant writer, a witty storyteller and a devoted mother and friend. We shall all miss her sweet smile and the joy of her laughter.

Family members who preceded Carla in death are Carla's father, J. Paul Cook; and grandparents, Lester Farr, Fred Jones and Cleo Jones.

Survivors: Her children, Brian Webb Kittinger Jr. and Chloe Amber Kittinger; husband, Russell David Emerick; stepchildren, Annalise Casey Emerick, Travis James Emerick and Justin Alexander Emerick; parents, Harvey Lester Farr and Roselene Jones Farr of Fort Worth; brothers, J. Paul Cook of Denton and George Kevin Farr of New York City, N.Y.; and grandmother, Evelyn Farr of Fort Worth.

Coker Funeral Home Decatur, (940) 627-5959