BIO

Connie Reeves Cooke, a native of Baytown, Texas, graduated from Robert E. Lee High School. She attended Dallas Fashion Merchandising College and worked at the Dallas Apparel Mart for Texas Fashions Magazine holding the position of fashion coordinator and Dallas and New York showroom model for two Dallas fashion design houses. She returned to Houston to work in the same capacity for Joe Frank, Inc.

Connie and her husband, Clayton, began playing tennis at Lakeside Country Club where she won a record nine doubles club championships and earned a state ranking with Clayton in Husband and Wife Doubles. She served on the board of the Lakeside Women’s Association, and served as president of the Lakeside Ladies Tennis Association.

In 1988, she began writing a society column for a statewide tennis newspaper before originating and writing the “Movers and Shapers” column for Houston Health & Fitness Magazine. That led to writing society columns for local and state magazines including Texas Woman, Philanthropy in Texas, Sense, Smart Set, and Features Editor of L’entrée. She also photographed the events for her columns, and did double duty as Fashion Editor and Stylist for Texas Woman and Smart Set. While writing for four magazines simultaneously, she also hosted her own society segment on two local television shows.

After attending Rice University to study novel and screenwriting, Connie’s love of writing led her to fulfill a lifelong dream of writing a novel, Fade to Dark, a suspense thriller which was published in 2006. Her second novel, Cayman Heat, another thriller set in the tropical paradise of Grand Cayman and the elite social stratosphere of Houston’s movers and shakers, will be released in May 2012. She is currently writing her third novel, Cayman Wind, a sequel to Cayman Heat.

Connie is currently chairing the “Moonlight Madness” Gala benefiting Knowledge Arts Foundation. She is publicity chairman for the 2012 University of Houston Moores School of Music Gala and served as underwriter dinner chairman for the 2012 Winter Ball. She chaired the 2011 Houston Humane Society’s “No Gala,” chaired the 2011 “Royal Weddings – Then and Now” Luncheon with special guest HRH Prince Jean de France, Duc de Vendome, benefiting Joanne King Herring’s Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, chaired Houston’s prestigious 2010 Winter Ball, chaired the 2010 “Serenity Garden and Green House Project Evening” for Memorial Hermann Prevention and Recovery Center, and chaired the 2008 and 2010 Houston Humane Society Galas. She served as honorary chairman for the 2009 HHS Gala, and chaired the 2007 “Big Beautiful Birdy Ball” benefiting Lone Star Wildlife Rescue’s American bald eagle project, the 2007 “No Gala” Gala benefiting Breakthrough Houston, the 2005 University of Houston Moores School of Music Gala, the 1999, 2001 and 2002 Silver Grace Hope Foundation Luncheon, the 2001 Lone Star Wildlife Rescue Evening, the 1999 Trees of Light for The Hospice at the Texas Medical Center, the 1999 Council on Alcohol & Drugs Houston Luncheon, the 1998 Houston Children’s Charity Gala, the 1998 Maestro Collection Luncheon benefiting the Houston Symphony League, the “Paul Williams Live” Evening for The Council on Alcohol & Drugs Houston, and the 1996 Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Gala.