NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

5/23/2006

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES - Dan Chase has had a new life for the past 25 years and he thanked the man who helped him through difficult times by enhancing the addictive studies program at Northwestern State University.

Chase made a donation of $60,000 to the NSU Foundation to establish the Dr. Francisco A. Silva Endowed Professorship in Addictive Studies at Northwestern. The professorship in the Department of Psychology honors Silva, a Baton Rouge psychiatrist who passed away in 2004.

For more than 40 years, Silva played a leadership role in the Baton Rouge mental health community. Silva was an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine from 1959 until 1972 and was a lecturer at Tulane until 2004. From 1989 until 2004, he was medical director of Mental and Behavioral Health at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge where he developed the Center's Behavioral Health Program.

Silva also served as director of the Tulane University Training and Research Unit, founder and director of the Baton Rouge Mental Health Center and chief of psychiatry at Doctors Memorial Hospital in Baton Rouge and its successor, Parkland Psychiatric Hospital.

Chase had been manic-depressive for many years, but was never diagnosed until he began seeing Silva, who treated him for 24 years.

"He was the man that helped me get started on the road to recovery," said Chase, a resident of Baton Rouge. "Dr. Silva came into my life as the result of my wife finding out about him. I am manic-depressive and I tried to treat my illness with alcohol and drank myself into alcoholism.

"Thanks to Dr. Silva, I am in remission. Because of him, I have been able to have the life I have led for the past 25 years. It has been more than I have ever dreamed. A lot of the things I have been able to do for Northwestern and for others were made possible because of him."

Silva was a member of the State Mental Health Advisory Board and the Louisiana Legislature's Mental Health Task Force, which helped develop mental health laws in the state. He was named the Louisiana Psychiatrist of the Year and was honored as a Fellow and Life Fellow by the American Psychiatric Association. One of Silva's great interests was continuing education. The Annual Francisco A. Silva, M.D. Distinguished Lecture Series was created in his honor by the Our Lady of the Lake's Division of Mental and Behavioral Health. The series annually brings nationally noted speakers in the field to Baton Rouge.

"Frank was keen on continuing education and it is special to have a contribution toward something ongoing that he loved so much," said Silva's wife, Debbie Silva. "I was so touched by what Dan did. It was extraordinary for him to come through like this. The contribution was an act of kindness that came from the heart. It means so much to recognize what Frank did in a special way."

The contribution will be matched by $40,000 from the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund to create a $100,000 endowed professorship in addiction studies. Interest generated by the endowment will fund faculty research and development along with needed equipment.

Chase is a 1957 graduate of Northwestern and is chairman and chief executive officer of Dan Chase Taxidermy Supply Co. Inc. He lettered in football at Northwestern. Chase has supported Northwestern as a member of the board of directors of the NSU Foundation, the NSU Alumni Association, NSU Athletic Association and the Graduate "N" Club. He was inducted into the NSU Hall of Distinction, the Long Purple Line, the university's highest honor for alumni. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by Northwestern.

In 2004, Chase and his wife Lilly established the Dan and Lilly Chase and daughters Marty Causey and Lisa Chase Endowed Professorship in the College of Education. The Chases have also supported the university by frequently hosting alumni meetings and other Northwestern recruitment events at their home. Dan and Lilly Chase are campaign co-chairs of Northwestern's "For a Brighter Tomorrow" Capital Campaign. He also holds leadership positions in other local, state and national professional and civic organizations.

Several years ago, Chase made a $100,000 donation to the NSU Athletic Association to set up a fully endowed scholarship for a student-athlete in any sport at Northwestern.

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