⛳ Kansas Women’s Golf to Participate in Folds of Honor in 2022-23
LAWRENCE, Kan. – The University of Kansas women’s golf team will participate in the Folds of Honor program honoring United States Military Veteran Major General Floyd Wilmer Baker, M.D. during their 2022-23 season.
Folds of Honor, the non-profit assisting families of service-members like Baker, was founded in 2007 by former KU golfer, Lt. Colonel Dan Rooney, who served three tours of duty in Iraq. Folds of Honor’s primary mission is to provide educational scholarships for the children and spouses of fallen or disabled service-members.
"We are honored to recognize Major General Baker through the Folds of Honor program this season. My teams have regularly participated in the Folds of Honor program throughout my coaching career. To be able to partake in this at Kansas, with Dan Rooney, a KU graduate and the Folds of Honor CEO, makes this that much more special."
Head Coach Lindsay Kuhle
To tribute Baker’s service, the Jayhawks will have one team member carry a golf bag during tournaments that has Baker’s name on it, as well as a story card describing where to donate to support Folds of Honor.
Fans are encouraged to donate per birdie on behalf of KU women’s golf. KU graduate senior Esme Hamilton, who carded 10 birdies, carried the Folds of Honor golf bag in KU’s first event at the Dick McGuire Invitational Sept. 12-13 in Albuquerque.
For more information on how to contribute to the Fold of Honor program, one can go to foldsofhonor.org.
ABOUT MAJOR GENERAL FLOYD WILMER BAKER
Throughout Baker’s 41 years of service that will be honored this season, he served many roles in the military, which includes 34 years of active duty during three wartime periods.
The early days of Baker’s boyhood were spent on a farm on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, where he learned that “hard work was not to be feared but that it was rewarding.” Later his family moved to the flat lands of Kansas.
He graduated from Leavenworth Senior High School in 1944 on his 17th birthday, just before D-Day in Europe. He elected to go to college at the University of Kansas rather than join the military, however, in March 1945 he enlisted in the Navy.
Baker graduated from the University of Kansas School of Medicine in 1953. His second year of surgical residency at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, coincided with the pioneer days of open-heart surgery. He was the operator of the artificial heart lung machine for the first cases done in the Army using such equipment. Baker worked with the machine shop at Fitzsimons Army Hospital to design parts for the pump-oxygenator. He even used his wife’s sewing machine to make a modified filter because the original filter was too harsh on the blood. For that contribution he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal. He would later receive the Distinguished Service Medal.
He spent two years as a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division in the positions of Division Surgeon and Commander of the 326th Medical Battalion. He served a total of 16 years in command positions, including those of hospitals in Wurzburg, Germany, and Fort Belvoir, Virginia; Brooke and Letterman Army Medical Centers; Seventh Medical Command in Germany; and U.S. Army Health Services Command.
He and his wife, Dolly, retired in San Antonio, Texas after his last assignment as the Commanding General, Health Services Command. Baker then served as the AMEDD Medical Museum Foundation Chairman from August 1998 to November 2005.
Baker died July 19, 2019, at the age of 92.
