From pre-teen columnist in Commerce giving advice about pet care to being owner of one of the ten largest businesses headed by a woman in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, Mary Spencer has never withheld compassion for her four-legged friends.

Her book just released, All My Fosters Are Rockstars: Tails of Compassion, relates stories of her heartfelt bonding with some of the 500 homeless animals she has rescued and fostered.

On Monday, April 18, from 4 until 6:30 p.m., Mary Spencer will be signing books at the Inwood Bank in downtown Commerce.  Total proceeds will go to Commerce Humane Association for support of its animal shelter.

As owner of the Spencer Company, a trendsetter in office design and hospital furniture, Mary Spencer has been equally successful as an animal advocate.  Eight years as president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Texas Board of Directors began in 1992. Currently she chairs the building committee for the new SPCA headquarters in Dallas.  She has received the SPCA Texas Lifetime Achievement Award.  In 2008 she was asked to represent the mayor of Dallas on the Dallas Animal Shelter Commission.

In the new book about her foster rockstars, she begins with an incident occurring in 1954 when she, her older brother, and her parents were living in Columbia, Missouri, where her father, Otha Spencer, was completing his doctorate in photojournalism at the University of Missouri. 

At her fourth birthday party, Mary was demonstrating a hammering technique when she accidentally knocked her cat Dusty unconscious.  When Dusty awoke in the veterinarian’s office, he was ready to play. Even before this incident, she had felt a special connection with animals, encouraged by her family.  Then at age eleven Mary Spencer was writing Happy Talk, a Commerce Journal weekly column answering questions from pet owners.

Her father became one of the most innovative photojournalists and yearbook creators in the nation, at one time mentoring many of the most renowned photographers in the nation during his teaching career at East Texas State University, now Texas A&M University-Commerce.  He is now completing his fourteenth book in Commerce.  Her late mother, Billie Spencer was also a prolific writer, contributing articles to Boys Life about the newest arts and crafts projects, using detailed photographs of Mary involved with activities as illustrations for the stories.

Three years after her father was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University-Commerce, Mary received the same award from her alma mater.  They were the second father-daughter recipients of the honor.  F.H. “Bub” McDowell, president of the university in Commerce, and his daughter, Susan, a poetry professor at Rice University, also received the award.           

Mary Spencer’s writing career reaches a new level with the current volume, filled with color photographs of happy, well-dressed animals  and stories of her joyous bonding with those fortunate ones who reached the open door of her Dallas home.  The volume captures Mary Spencer’s love of animals and the affection they express for her.