Community to honor philanthropist Bill Cook's life in IU Auditorium

IU and Cook Group will honor Cook Inc. founder Bill Cook with a memorial celebration June 1. Cook, whose company’s medical devices made him Indiana’s richest man, died in April.

He donated millions of dollars in gifts to the City of Bloomington, the state of Indiana and IU over the years — including the largest donation IU Athletics has ever received.

IU’s basketball development center, Cook Hall, is named in his honor for this gift. At Cook’s insistence, the large plaque hanging in the building’s lobby contains the name of every Cook employee.

“He was literally a life changing GIANT of a Man and Leader,” men’s basketball coach Tom Crean posted on Twitter after he heard the news of Cook’s death. “Not many people can say they made the world a better place because of work they did, but Mr. Cook sure can.”

The William and Gayle Cook Music Library in the Jacobs School of Music is also named in his honor.

“Bill will long be remembered as an extraordinarily successful man of great generosity, not only to Indiana University, but to the City of Bloomington and indeed to all of Indiana,” IU President Michael McRobbie said on a web page created after Cook’s death.

“In less than a half century, he built a business that became a world leader in providing high-quality medical devices that have extended and added quality to the lives of millions of people.”

Cook was named an honorary Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives and is a member of the Bloomington Hall of Fame.
He also received honorary Doctorate Degrees from IU, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and Northwestern University.

The celebration is public and includes a reception and a program honoring Cook’s life and legacy and will feature musical performances and luminaries who worked with Cook.

Gov. Mitch Daniels will also attend the ceremony to posthumously award Cook the Sachem Award. The Sachem Award is the highest honor the state can give
a person.

“Bill Cook did so many great things, but even more important, he did so many right things,” Daniels said in a news release. “Indiana will always revere his character and example beyond all the jobs he created and history he preserved. His was truly a life worth emulating.”

Previous Sachem Award recipients include baseball legend Carl Erskine and gospel musicians Bill and Gloria Gaither.

The celebration is scheduled for June 1 in the IU Auditorium. The reception will begin at 5:30 p.m. and the program is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.

—  Jake New