Angels in - Pound Pup Legacy

with her children and community. In 1999, Loralei
and her late husband received the North Dakota
Special Recognition Award for their commitment to
adoption. Her dedication to her children has made
her our perfect candidate for the 2003 Angel in
Adoption award.
Ohio
Arden and Diana Brooks
Representative Ted Strickland
Arden and Diana Brooks have been certified as
foster parents since November 2000 and have had
nine children placed in their home. Five of the
children currently in their home are siblings who
have spent time in their home off and on over the
past three years. Arden and Diana however, are
now in the process of adopting them, ensuring that
this is their last placement. The Brooks’ want every
child to feel like a part of their family and take all
children – foster and day care – on vacation with
them. They never count the cost when caring for
children in need and have gone on vacation with as
many as nineteen children! Arden and Diana place
great emphasis on education and their efforts have
paid off with all of the children becoming honor
students. In fact, the eldest is a straight A student,
who won the Presidential Scholastic Award last year
in junior high.
A challenging part of foster care is working with
the biological family to reach the goal of
reunification. They take the children’s wishes into
consideration, and willingly work with families to
reunite the family unit. They have even provided
support to empower the children placed in their
homes to find positive ways to overcome behaviors
connected with abuse and neglect.
Kevin and Wendy Hoodlebrink
Senator Mike DeWine
Kevin and Wendy adopted a sibling group of seven
brothers and sisters to whom they had been foster
parents. Making their family complete were
Anthony, Joshua, Lucas, Whitney, Timothy, Jacob,
and Brianna, who joined the Hoodlebrinks three
biological children Tiffany, Justin, and Tyler. In
addition, the Hoodlebrinks remain foster parents to
other children. Adopting such a large sibling group
is evidence of the true dedication the Hoodlebrinks
have towards adoption and to the special bond
these children have to one another. The
Hoodlebrinks have had a long and dedicated history
to adoption and foster care since first taking in two
children from children protective services many
years ago. While fostering those two children, they
learned that they had 10 other siblings in foster
care. Eventually, all of those children passed through
the Hoodlebrinks home as Wendy and Kevin
worked to keep the siblings together. The
Hoodlebrink household has certainly been a haven
for large sibling groups over the years, and I
commend them for opening their hearts and home.
Dorothy Klemm
Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Dorothy “Dottie” Klemm recently retired as the
Administrator of the Adoption Department at
Cuyahoga County Department of Children and
Family Services. She has worked her entire
professional career at the agency, most of it in the
service of creating permanent adoptive families for
abused and neglected children. As a caseworker,
supervisor and administrator, Dottie has been
steadfast in her devotion to delivering high quality
services to vulnerable children and their families.
After becoming the administrator of the adoption
department, Dottie has been an inspirational leader
in increasing adoption opportunities for children
waiting for families to call their own. Since 1994,
adoptions in Cuyahoga County have increased by
more than 250%, for a total of 741 in 2002. A few
examples of her efforts include: establishing interdepartmental
procedures to speed the adoption
process within the agency, working with agency
administration and the county government to create
additional adoption staff positions to speed the
adoption process, and facilitating monthly meetings
with private agencies so that adoptive families could
be more quickly matched with county children. She
was also instrumental in establishing regular
meetings for area adoption agency managers to
provide program updates and improve interagency
collaboration.
Dottie values the parents who provide
permanent homes as precious resources and has
devoted much of her professional focus to
developing long-term support services for adoptive
families. She has worked to expand awareness and
eligibility of financial subsidy programs available to
adoptive parents, while remaining a responsible
steward of public funds. She is recognized around
the state as an expert on adoption issues. Over the
years of her career, Dottie has developed a strong
professional interest in the entire field of adoption,
not just in the public child welfare arena. She is a
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