When Dublin graduate Rudy Cox was a sophomore in high school, he got hurt playing football. “I went to an MD, and he sent me to an osteopathic clinic group in Fort Worth/Dallas,” he said. “They wanted to put me in a 23-and-a-half hour scoliosis brace… And so mom and dad took me to a chiropractor, Ronnie Hughes in Dublin, and nine months of pain went away in three weeks. It was life-changing.”
Cox decided right then and there that he wanted to have a career as a chiropractor. He has now been in the practice for 41 years and helped hundreds of patients.
Cox graduated from Dublin High School in 1979 and went to Tarleton for two years. There, he played trombone in the band and started the university’s chapter of the music fraternity Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia.
After two years at Tarleton, Cox married his high school sweetheart Lisa Templeton, and the two of them moved to Pasadena so Cox could attend Texas Chiropractic College. To make some money during college he took a job at San Jacinto National Monument as a seasonal worker. “I cleaned the floors and did custodial work for about two hours, and then I was security for the next six hours, which gave me the chance to study,” he said.
When Cox graduated with his chiropractic degree in 1984, he took a position as a chiropractor in the Woodlands in the Houston area. He and Lisa built their life in Houston, and over the years there Cox worked at various clinics and served as team doctor for multiple Houston high schools, including Aldine/MacArthur, Spring/Westfield, and Jersey Village.
Cox and his wife had two children, Stephanie and Carrie. When his daughters were in junior high and high school, Cox was a “band dad,” making props for marching shows, driving equipment and volunteering. One year, he helped out by driving a truck of equipment up to Indianapolis where the band was set to compete in Bands of America.
During this time, Cox regained his passion for music — he enjoyed playing in a community band, and even returned to Tarleton to march with the marching band at an alumni event.
In the early 2000s, Cox’s wife Lisa became ill with a brain disease, and in 2006 she moved into Golden Age Manor in Dublin. Cox took a chiropractic job in San Antonio to be closer (at least closer than Houston). Cox visited her frequently for the last two years of her life, until she passed away in 2008.
“Lisa was the love of my life,” he said. “God gave me my wife from age 14, and I had her through the end of her life, and I cannot ask for more.”
Cox still lives in San Antonio, and now works at Alivio Rehabilitation Clinic, where he is the out-of-network provider for workers’ compensation. His work consists of meeting with patients and helping set out a treatment and rehabilitation plan for their injuries.
Workers’ comp is a tough system to work in — it’s often hard for patients to get the care they need, and Cox has to deal with more paperwork than providers who work in other systems. “It is the single most hardest job I have ever had in my life, in that the paperwork is grueling,” he said. “Having to deal with the workers’ comp system — there’s a reason why a lot of providers don’t want any part of dealing with workers’ comp because they make it so outlandishly hard for the patientsandfortheproviders.”
Seeing his patients improve makes it worth it, though. “[The most rewarding thing] is watching them prosper, watching them get better, giving everything I’ve got to make their time better within a system that’s flawed,” he said.
Throughout his career, Cox has helped hundreds of people. “I have a wall with all the things that people have given me over the last 41 years — little statues, little cartoons, an Apache walking stick,” he said. “One of the favorite things somebody has given me was, an elderly man came in for therapy, and he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t hardly move, and his wife was pushing him in the wheelchair, and I looked at him, I said, ‘You are not a lump of coal. You’re somebody’s loved one, and we’re going to do everything we can to try to help you.’ When we finished him up, his wife gave me a plastic bag, like a ziploc with a charcoal briquette, and wrote me a little sweet note.”
Cox plans to keep working at the clinic as long as he can. “I will never retire,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 41 years, and I’ll do it until I can’t.”
When Cox isn’t working, his other passion in life is being an outdoorsman. “My brother and I hunted with my dad, and dad taught us how to fish and hunt and obey the laws of Parks and Wildlife and the state of Texas, to honor the animals and the fish,” he said. “He taught us how to shoot, dove hunt, duck hunt, deer hunt, and fly fish.”
Cox especially enjoys fly fishing and hunting deer, hogs and turkey with bolt action pistols.
Throughout his life, Cox’s parents, Dale and Paula Cox, have remained one of his greatest sources of inspiration. His father was a rural mail carrier and played in a bluegrass band, and his mother worked in Dublin schools as a teachers aide for 40 years. “I had the world’s greatest father, and the world’s greatest mom,” he said.
His wife, Lisa, was another inspiration. “Lisa was my Christian faith rock,” he said. “She was God’s gift to me. She was a wonderful, wonderful wife. She was Christian. She was beautiful, she was loving. She would do anything for anybody. She could cook like a fiend, and she was a great mother and great spouse and great friend.”
Two years ago, Cox became a grandfather, and enjoys spending time with daughter Stephanie and his two grandchildren, Connor and Brianne. His younger daughter, Carrie, passed away in 2011.
Cox’s advice to Dublin graduates is to take advantage of their time in Dublin. Talk to your counselor, and know that the way the teachers teach you [in Dublin], you will be well prepared for Tarleton or any other college you go to,” he said. “It goes by so fast — enjoy yourself now in the time that you’re there, listen to your parents, listen to your friends, watch the ones that are successful in school, and mimic them and understand that this time will be a very short part of your life. Enjoy it. Work hard, listen to your teachers, and stay out of trouble.”
— Where Are They Now chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.