Einar Cook Leadership Award

Einar Cook, 1911 – 1992

Einar was born in Clovis, CA in the family home at Peach and Shaw Avenues, on July 2, 1911. He attended Clovis Schools, and was a member of the 1929 graduating class of Clovis High School. He was a charter member of the Clovis Unified School District governing board serving from 1960 to 1963. Before that he was a member of the Clovis Union High School Board of Trustees from 1947 to 1960 and served as both president and clerk of the board. In 1984 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Community Service by CUSD Superintendent Dr. Floyd Buchanan. He was proud to have cast a deciding vote to hire Dr. Buchanan as the first CUSD Superintendent. He taught metal shop for two years at Clovis High School during World War II due to a shortage of teachers; He was ineligible to join the military for medical reasons.

He was one of the founders of the Clovis Memorial Hospital and served on its board as treasure. It later became Clovis Community Hospital where he served on its board for several years. Today it is known as Clovis Community Medical Center. He was a member of the executive board of Clovis Methodist Church and also served on the Finance and Building Committees. Through his dedication to farming and education, he was a life member of Future Farmers of America. He was active in establishing the Clovis Boys League. He also was a member of the Clovis Lions Club and the Danish Brotherhood Lodge and Dania.

Because of the active role he played in the City of Clovis, he was inducted as a Charter Member of the Clovis Hall of Fame in 1975.

In the 1940’s he established Cook Disc and Implements and manufactured farm equipment that he invented and patented including the Cook Culti-Plow and an off-set Cook Disc which was widely sold locally and throughout the US and abroad. He was the largest manufacturer in the Clovis area at that time, employing 30 to 40 men. The Cook Disc and Implement manufacturing company was sold to the T.G. Schmeiser Company in 1975. Einar was very proud to have joined the Clovis Chamber of Commerce in 1942; Cook Disc and Implements later transitioned in to Cook Land Company which has been a continuous active member of the Clovis Chamber. The Cook entities have been a continuous and active member of the Chamber to the present.

His many accomplishments in the business world also stand as a tribute to him. He helped form and served as a board member of the Clovis/Sanger Cotton Gin. He helped form the Central California Almond Growers Association and served as a member of that board until he retired from growing almonds. He also served on the Almond Control Board.

He helped establish the Clovis Community Bank and served on the Board of Directors until his death. He was a member of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers. In addition to farm machinery patents, and just prior to his death, he invented and received a patent for a heart pump of which was licensed to Baxter Healthcare.

He felt a big accomplishment and boost to the local community was influencing the Danish pump company, Grundfos Pumps, to locate their American Headquarters in Clovis in 1973. The original manufacturing facility at Clovis and Santa Ana Avenues is now the CART- Center for Advanced Research and Technology, and the factory and manufacturing headquarters were relocated to a location near Fowler and Shields in Fresno.

Einar’s father bought and homesteaded 20 acres on Shaw and Peach in 1899 and planted it with vines and row crops. Many years later, with his son Jerry Cook, he developed it into a business center called Shaw-Peach Industrial Park. After Einar Cook’s death, the center was re-developed again in to a Wal-Mart anchored shopping center known as Sunflower Market Place.

Einar Cook married Edith Roughton, who was a school teacher, and they had three children Karen McNally, Jean Brown and Jerry Cook. Edith died in 1969.

People remembered Einar Cook as a very humble, unselfish, and visionary man that worked extremely hard and was totally dedicated to community service and making the City of Clovis a better place to live and raise children.

Written originally in 1992 and updated in 2014.