The 2000 Awardees

Hon. Marcia G. Cooke
(1954-2023)

BSFS 1975
Tallahassee, FL

Marcia Cooke, U.S. district judge and former president of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Boca Raton Resort, Boca Raton, FL on February 26, 2000.

Born in Sumter, SC in 1954, Cooke graduated from the School of Foreign Service in 1975 and earned her law degree at Wayne State University. A former public defender, she was an assistant U.S, Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan and in 1984 was named a United States Magistrate, the youngest federal judicial officer in the nation at that time.

In 1992, Cooke was the director of professional development at the United States Attorney's office in Miami and was named as chief inspector general for the state of Florida in 1999. In 2002, Cooke was appointed an assistant attorney for Miami-Dade County before being named to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2003 and approved 96-0 by the United States Senate.

A member of the Board of Governors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association from 1992 to 1996, Cooke was elected as the first woman to serve as president of the Association serving from 1996 through 1998. In the intervening years, she endowed a fund at the Georgetown University Library in honor of her parents, Heyward & Ella Randolph Cooke.

Judge Cooke died in January 2023 at the age of 68.

Mark S. Gallegos

JD 1982
Miami, FL

Mark Gallegos, a Miami-based attorney, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Boca Raton Resort, Boca Raton, FL on February 26, 2000.

A 1977 graduate of Yale, Gallegos received his law degree from Georgetown in 1982 and has been in private practice in the Miami area thereafter. His personal biography reads that "Mr. Gallegos has served in several leadership positions in important national Hispanic organizations including National President and Secretary of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA)."

Gallegos served on the Board of Governors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association from 1994 to 2000 and received the Paul R. Dean Award from the Law Center in 1997.

J. Kevin Kenny
(1936-2008)

BSS 1958
North Palm Beach, FL

John Kevin Kenny, former CEO of the J.J. Kenny Company, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Boca Raton Resort, Boca Raton, FL on February 26, 2000.

Raised in Manhasset, NY, Kenny received his degree from Georgetown College in 1958, majoring in economics and air science while in ROTC. Following three years in the U.S. Air Force, he joined his father 's brokerage business, the J.J. Kenny Company. The younger company became president of the firm in 1967 and set it on a path of rapid expansion, as the Kenny Company became the largest inter-dealer broker of municipal bonds in the nation and grew to over 700 employees nationwide. The company was sold to McGraw-Hill in 1990 and Kenny retired in 1992.

A devoted and generous alumnus to Georgetown, Kenny served on the Board of Directors and helped to support a number of financial aid endowments. " Philanthropy was extremely important to Kevin and during his lifetime he devoted himself to many charitable interests, always lending his time and resources to further education, Catholic charities, and medicine." wrote his 2014 obituary in the New York Times. "Recognizing the importance of education for all children, he was a pioneer in starting and furthering the Inner-City Scholarship Fund in [New York City], providing scholarships, classrooms, and computers for children and serving as patron when needed for rebuilding schools. In 1994 he received the Irish Man of the Year Award for his extraordinary generosity and unselfish commitment of personal and financial resources to St. Thomas Aquinas and other inner-city schools."

"Throughout his life he believed faith, family, honesty and integrity were the cornerstones of his success."

Kevin Kenny died on his 72nd birthday, Jan. 15, 2008.

Ruth B. Tart

BSN 1967
Miami, FL

Ruth Tart, a retired nurse and alumni volunteer, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Boca Raton Resort, Boca Raton, FL on February 26, 2000.

At the time of the award, Tart was completing her tenure as nurse at the Fairfield County (CT) Public Health Dept. of Nursing, and relocating to Florida.

A member of the Board of Governors of the Georgetown University Alumni Association from 1990 to 1996, Ruth and her husband Brian, a John Carroll awardee in 2007, have been active across a number of University fundraising and class initiatives. Ruth joined fellow John Carroll awardee John Wooters as co-chairs of the successful 1998 John Carroll event in New York.

John D. Wooters III

AB 1975
Morristown, NJ

John Wooters, a former banking executive, received the John Carroll Award in ceremonies held at the Boca Raton Resort, Boca Raton, FL on February 26, 2000.

At the time of the award, Wooters was executive vice president of MBNA America Bank, led by Georgetown alumnus and John Carroll awardee Charles Cawley (C'62). Following the sale of MBNA to the Bank of America in 2006, Wooters returned to the Hilltop to serve as managing director of two of Georgetown's leading alumni affinity groups, the New York-based Wall Street Alliance (WSA) and the London-based City Alliance.

According to its web site, the Wall Street Alliance "works to raise Georgetown's profile and that of its alumni, parents and friends in business; to create and participate in networking opportunities for business professionals; to provide networking, mentoring and scholarship support to current and future Georgetown students and to build relationships between members' firms and the university for the mutually beneficial exchange of resources."

The City Alliance was founded in 2008, noting that "the City Alliance was developed utilizing the same model of the WSA, essentially, creating a professional networking community among those who work in financial services. The City Alliance will bring together Alumni, Parents, Students and Friends who have an interest in networking, mentoring, career counseling and promoting Georgetown's profile in the London financial community." Both groups have grown and thrived under Wooters' experience and leadership.

A former member of the Board of Governors and Board of Regents, Wooters is a past president of Hoyas Unlimited and received the William Gaston Award for alumni volunteer service in 1994. he was the co-chair of the 1998 John Carroll awards weekend in New York.