Jane Derrick is the daughter of an anesthesiologist mother and engineer father, who turned orthopedic surgeon. She recalls a loving household, even though her parents were dedicated scholars and workaholics.
Jane has always been a fighter. She was a championship tennis player, winning the National Jaycee Girls Tennis Tournament at age 18. She attended the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, where she met and married her husband Paul. With a short break after the birth of her first child, she completed her B.A. in Mathematics. After she worked a year as a computer programmer in the UT Defense Research Lab while her husband worked on his master’s degree in social work, they moved to Waco, Texas, where she became a stay at home mom. Volunteering by delivering meals and working with the League of Women Voters, she was a force of influence for change within the community, always gravitating to what was logical, correct, and broader in vision. She helped secure a lawyer and helped to bring a suit against the city of Waco for its poor representation of citizens on the city council. Her efforts resulted in a won suit and single member districts for the city of Waco.
Back to UT Austin, she achieved a master’s degree in social work while her husband worked on his Ph.D. in social work. And when they returned to Waco, she got a job with the Texas Department of Human Services as a contract manager and worked for twenty-two years. But the work of the community was in her blood and following a short retirement, she got back active in the community. Fairness, equity, and a sense of integrity were at the base of her belief system and social activism was a way of life with Jane. She was instrumental in organizing interracial dialogues and projects involving race relations. (To see double click here: Waco Tribune article.)
When faced with triple negative breast cancer in 2012, she immediately started reaching out to friends and family to form a support group, problem solving issues and using mind-body techniques to facilitate healing. After treatment, she developed a cancer fighting lifestyle to prevent recurrence. A friend impressed with her continuing health updates to her support group, urged her to write a book about her cancer experience.
In 2014, after living in Waco for 45+ years, she and her husband moved to Denver to live with her daughter and family.
They immediately settled in, finding recreational and medical facilities to meet Jane’s needs. In 2017, four years after her last cancer treatment, with the hope of empowering other cancer survivors to beat cancer as well, Jane was inspired to begin writing her memoir, See Jane Beat Cancer: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed. She also maintains supportive communication with and visits to cancer survivor friends and relatives from Texas to Virginia. After having no suspicious results found on a recent mammogram and oncologist examination, she has graduated to annual visits with her oncologist.
More about Jane
Jane has always been a fighter. She was a championship tennis player, winning the National Jaycee Girls Tennis Tournament at age 18. She attended the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, where she met and married her husband Paul. With a short break after the birth of her first child, she completed her B.A. in Mathematics. After she worked a year as a computer programmer in the UT Defense Research Lab while her husband worked on his master’s degree in social work, they moved to Waco, Texas, where she became a stay at home mom. Volunteering by delivering meals and working with the League of Women Voters, she was a force of influence for change within the community, always gravitating to what was logical, correct, and broader in vision. She helped secure a lawyer and helped to bring a suit against the city of Waco for its poor representation of citizens on the city council. Her efforts resulted in a won suit and single member districts for the city of Waco.
Back to UT Austin, she achieved a master’s degree in social work while her husband worked on his Ph.D. in social work. And when they returned to Waco, she got a job with the Texas Department of Human Services as a contract manager and worked for twenty-two years. But the work of the community was in her blood and following a short retirement, she got back active in the community. Fairness, equity, and a sense of integrity were at the base of her belief system and social activism was a way of life with Jane. She was instrumental in organizing interracial dialogues and projects involving race relations. (To see double click here: Waco Tribune article.)
When faced with triple negative breast cancer in 2012, she immediately started reaching out to friends and family to form a support group, problem solving issues and using mind-body techniques to facilitate healing. After treatment, she developed a cancer fighting lifestyle to prevent recurrence. A friend impressed with her continuing health updates to her support group, urged her to write a book about her cancer experience.
In 2014, after living in Waco for 45+ years, she and her husband moved to Denver to live with her daughter and family.
They immediately settled in, finding recreational and medical facilities to meet Jane’s needs. In 2017, four years after her last cancer treatment, with the hope of empowering other cancer survivors to beat cancer as well, Jane was inspired to begin writing her memoir, See Jane Beat Cancer: A Guide for the Newly Diagnosed. She also maintains supportive communication with and visits to cancer survivor friends and relatives from Texas to Virginia. After having no suspicious results found on a recent mammogram and oncologist examination, she has graduated to annual visits with her oncologist.
More about Jane
- Jane is an avid bird watcher. She has birded in New Zealand, Tahiti, Belize, and Alaska as well as the continental US.
- Jane co-led an international folk dance group in Waco for over 10 years.
- Jane sings and plays the banjo and played in her husband’s dance band for three years.
- Jane and her husband have camped at Big Bend National Park in Texas 19 times, starting in 1970.
- Jane is the grandchild of Roy Bedichek, author of Adventures with a Texas Naturalist. (To see more about Roy Bedichek double click here: Roy Bedichek Home Page.)
You may contact Jane at [email protected]
