OBITUARY   In Memory of Travis Kirk Workman February 11, 1976 - September 4, 2015 Obituary Kirk Workman, 39, ended his earth journey on September 4, 2015, at his home in Carrollton, Texas, as a result of complications from melanoma cancer. A celebration of his life is scheduled for 2pm Wednesday, September 9, 2015 at Riverside Church of Christ in Coppell with Jarrod Robinson, minister of Southern Hills Church of Christ in Abilene, and Ben Siburt, executive minister of Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, officiating. Services are under the direction of Rolling Oaks Funeral Home, Coppell. Interment will be in A. W. Perry Cemetery (Hilltop Memorial Park) in Carrollton. A visitation will be held on Tuesday, September 8 from 6-8pm At Rolling Oaks Funeral Home. Kirk was born February 18, 1976 in Crane, Texas to Jimmy and Luanne Workman and grew up in Ballinger, Texas, where he graduated from high school in 1994. His advanced studies took him first to Harding University in Searcy, Ark., where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in social work, then to the University of Houston, where he received the Master of Social Work degree with Health Care Specialization. A month after graduating in May 2000, Kirk began a career which spanned four organizations and made a remarkable difference in the lives of thousands of patients who benefitted from his extra-ordinary skills, integrity and compassion. His first position was a six-year tenure at West Texas Rehabilitation Center, a multi-disciplinary, comprehensive rehabilitation program serving the physically disabled in a broad area of West Texas through facilities in Abilene, San Angelo and Ozona. His initial assignment was director of social services for all three WTRC facilities and bereavement services coordinator for Rehab’s Hospice of the Big Country. In time, he added Swing Bed Social Work Consultant, providing medical social work expertise to Rehab’s health care teams in rural settings and, on an as-needed basis, served as medical social worker to the Abilene Area Dialysis Center. Kirk’s final position at WTRC was director of all adult therapy services in the San Angelo facility—physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology and employer services. It was during his employment at WTRC that he met speech pathologist Dana Veach. They were married on July 24, 2004 in Magnolia, Ark. In November 2006, the Workmans moved to Dallas for Kirk to take the position of Social Work Manager in Parkland Health & Hospital System’s Department of Care Management. For the next five years, he provided leadership to social workers and nurse case managers in medicine, surgery, women & infant specialty health, emergency department, oncology, dialysis and transplant service areas. His leadership style, creative approach to problem-solving and his coordination with other departments and with community groups earned Kirk the CIRCLES Award a year after joining Parkland’s system. CIRCLES is an acronym for Compassion, Integrity, Respect, Collaboration, Leadership, Excellence and Stewardship—words which defined Kirk Workman both personally and professionally. For two years, beginning in January 2012, Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children benefitted from his exemplary style of leadership, while he served as Director of Family Services. In addition to directing social workers, language interpreters, medical librarians, financial counselors, clerical staff and appointment coordinators, Kirk was involved in special projects to improve discharge planning, build an on-line social work resource directory, develop a model for financial counseling, and ensure proper billing practices consistent with the hospital’s mission to serve all patients regardless of their ability to pay. In August of 2014, Kirk took the position of Director of Care Transitions Management at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Denton, where he was employed until his death. In that role, he supervised case managers responsible for helping patients navigate through the health care system to a safe discharge and was responsible for assuring that all regulatory requirements for discharge planning and follow-through were met. Colleagues in each place he worked described Kirk as a born leader, the ultimate professional, genuine and sincere, a man of great integrity. Though his tenure at Texas Health Presbyterian was short, he was acknowledged by coworkers as a man who had a powerfully positive impact. Perhaps one colleague summed it up for all: The field of social work has core values. They are service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity and competence. Kirk Workman personified those values. And he was equally magnetic in his personal life. He is remembered by friends as the guy everybody loved…a man who delighted in the FARSIDE comic strip…a person with a wonderful sense of humor. And there was the laugh! As one friend put it, “Kirk’s laugh was a full body experience, complete with a knee slap followed by the long, contented sigh of a man who loved life, loved humor, and knew that a chuckle could take the sting out of a painful trial or the fear out of a scary situation.” Others remember those big brown eyes…his good sense tempered with compassion… his love of all kinds of music…his pride in a proper shine to his cowboy boots…his ability to turn a hunk of turquoise or silver into beautiful jewelry. And then there was family—mentioned last in this article, but always first in his heart. Never did a man take greater joy in family fun, laughter and memory-building than Kirk Workman—a practice he initiated even before marriage. Few other men would want his declaration of love to be so special as to conclude a scholarly conference lecture to 300 people with the final power point slide directed to Dana, who was in the audience: “Will you marry me?” In the Workman household, the oft-repeated phrase when something needed repair has been a confident “Daddy fix it” because he could fix everything or build anything—including crafting a toy box, a porch bench and twin beds for his son Daniel, age 7. He was delighted that he’d influenced Daniel to share his love of Star Wars, Whataburger, and history—especially Texas history, including the Alamo! Twin daughters Mary and Amelia, age 4, routinely piled up with Dad for story time--and individually had regular dinner dates with him, followed by shopping trips for jewelry. In addition to family members, a major presence in the Workman household has always been God, in whom Kirk and Dana have had an abiding faith, which they’ve instilled in their three children. Kirk was a lifelong member of the Churches of Christ, most recently at Riverside Church of Christ in Coppell, TX. As a friend said: “Kirk Workman showed us how life should be lived—with equally generous doses of good humor, compassion, honor, and integrity. And when the time came, he showed us how death should be faced—head-on, without fear, and with confidence in the Lord.” Kirk is survived by his wife Dana and their three children Daniel, Mary and Amelia; his parents Luanne and Bill of Ballinger; sister Kristy Andrews and husband Richard and their children Colter and Kyleigh of Ballinger. He is also survived by his parents-in-law Dan and Ann Veach of Little Rock, Ark, and by sister-in-law Sidney Keisner, husband David and son Henry, also of Little Rock, as well as numerous uncles, aunts and cousins. He was predeceased by his father Jimmy Workman and his grandparents RD and Veda Travis and Ray and Hollis Workman. The family asks that memorials in Kirk’s name be made to ChristianWorks for Children or to the Parkland Foundation – Social Services Fund. ChristianWorks for Children, 5440 Harvest Hill Road, Suite 140, Dallas, TX 75230. ChristianWorks serves bereaved families through GriefWorks and Camp Erin. Kirk was a faithful volunteer at Camp Erin each summer, walking alongside young children who had experienced the death of someone close to them as their “Big Buddy.” Donations can be made to Parkland Foundation in memory of Kirk Workman. Visit www.IStandforParkland.org. Or, send gifts via mail to Parkland Foundation, 2777 North Stemmons Freeway, Suite 1700, Dallas, Texas 75207.

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