Arts & Sciences Outstanding Alumni are
‘Like Brother and Sister’

Longtime friends' dedication to service began at Webster

Tim Noelker

The College of Arts & Sciences’ two most recent Outstanding Alumni Award recipients have a few things in common: Expertise in their fields. Dedication to community service. Participation in Webster alumni connections. And a friendship that goes back 35 years.

Tim Noelker (’73) was honored at Webster’s 2007 commencement for his long-time service to children’s issues. Nancy Edmonds Paull (’80) was honored at the 2006 commencement for more than 20 years of leadership in social service on a national and international level.

Both got their start as young Webster students in 1970.

“We met when we were each becoming RCs – resident counselors – in the resident halls,” Noelker recalls. “That was a memorable experience under the guidance of Susan Weingarten. We truly worked together as a group, serving as sort of therapeutic counselors for students who needed a hand.”

Whether resolving student conflicts or lending a shoulder to cry on, the counselors’ experiences helped them become a tight group. The next summer, Paull and Noelker volunteered as counselors at the St. Louis Juvenile County Court to help work with the court’s most disturbed children.

“We did that as a team, so they had more counselors on hand to help,” Noelker says. “We’d meet once a week in training sessions with social workers, Ph.D.s, and psychologists.”

“Many of these kids were severely traumatized – often abused or coming from substance-abusing homes,” says Paull, who for 20 years has led Stanley Street Treatment and Resources (SSTAR), a growing New England agency that includes substance abuse treatment among its many health programs. “It was a group therapy and summer activity program. We’d pile them into the car and cruise all over town, taking them to films, Six Flags, Cardinals games.”

‘Nancy Had to Approve My Bride’

For Paull and Noelker, two summers at the juvenile court – coupled with the RC work and college’s indelible memories – created a bond that time could not break.

“We just always kept up after that, like brother and sister really. Nancy’s parents liked me,” Noelker says with a laugh.

Nancy Edmonds Paull with Webster University president Richard Meyers after she was honored at the 2006 commencement.

“Yes, my mother adopted him as another son,” Paull says. “But both sets of our parents bonded together, which was really nice. We all kept in touch.”

“I guess the key to our staying friends was that we never dated,” jokes Noelker, who is godfather to Paull’s oldest son. “But Nancy still had to approve my bride, Didi.”

“I tried to warn her about Tim,” Paull retorts, noting that Deirdre Noelker – a Webster adjunct faculty member in biology – married him anyway.

During her senior year Nancy Edmonds, a Massachusetts native, returned to the northeast with her beloved Jonathan Paull, now her husband of 30 years. Noelker, a St. Louis native, graduated and went to law school at Saint Louis University. Yet even as the two pursued careers and growing families in separate locations, their connection remained.

“We still see each other at least once a year, sometimes more,” Noelker says. “When our kids were younger our families would summer vacation together. Then other events, weddings, and funerals, have kept us seeing each other. Now our work brings us together, so we’ll compare notes when we’re both in Washington, D.C.”

A Career and a Hobby: Improving Service Agencies around the World
Paull’s successful leadership of SSTAR has led her to assist other agencies in the United States and around the world. Her involvement with the UN’s International Network of Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Resource Centers has taken her to places as varied as Russia, China, and Africa. In all those places, she helps share best practices in drug abuse and HIV treatment in underdeveloped regions where funding is scarce. [Note: More about Paull’s work appeared in the Fall 2006 issue of Webster World, the alumni magazine.]

While pursuing his law career, Noelker, now chair of Thompson Coburn LLP’s government contracts group, has retained his involvement with helping children’s agencies. His longtime involvement with the Webster Groves-based Edgewood Children’s Center, where he has been a volunteer and board member, goes back to his college days.

He has also served on the board of the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, D.C., and was president of its board from 2003-2005. Currently he is on the board of the Council on Accreditation in New York City, an international organization that accredits human service agencies throughout the world.

“At Webster we were both doing similar kinds of things,” Noelker says. “Nancy has made a career out of it – even becoming a worldwide expert on it – whereas I’ve turned it into an extra-curricular.”

Paull jokes, “And he took a turn to the right,” referring to their differing political leanings since their college days.

“My work with the Council on Accreditation has been an education,” Noelker says. “It’s a great learning experience, involving a lot of nonprofit corporate governance. People with the Council are a lot like Nancy: They really know how these agencies should be run.”

While the two trade notes on ways to help service agencies from inner-city streets to rural Armenia, they also trade the stories and support of longtime friends.

“Tim has been a great support for me,” Paull says. “He’s always been there for me: for friendship, of course, but I’ve also turned to him a lot for legal advice.”

Echoing that sentiment, Noelker adds self-deprecation: “And Nancy is always very tolerant and patient – no matter how long I carry on.”

Both remain active in Webster alumni activities. Their fellow alum, Eve Coulson (’74) – with whom Paull subleased Webster philosophy professor Art Sandler’s apartment in the early ‘70s – nominated Paull for the Alumni Association’s 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award.

“Webster helped us form wonderful lifelong relationships,” Paull says. “Even when we see one another for the first time in 10 years, it’s like we never left.”