Oct 6, 2017 2 min read

The Rev. Tami Hooker of Peters Township, chaplaincy director of SCI-Greene prison and assistant religious services administrator for the state Department of Correction’s Bureau of Treatment Services, is one of two recipients of the 2017 Pennsylvania Prison Chaplains Association Correctional Chaplain of the Year award.

Founded in 1976, the PPCA is an association of state and county correctional chaplains, which seeks to elevate the standards of religious programs in correctional facilities while improving the effectiveness of correctional chaplains. Hooker received the award at the PPCA Annual Banquet held in Carlisle in September.

Hooker was ordained in 2002 by the Pittsburgh Presbytery to serve as the Protestant chaplain at the State Correctional Institution at Pittsburgh.

In 2004, she was promoted to acting facility chaplaincy program director at SCI-Pittsburgh, and remained in that position until 2005 when the institution closed. She was then transferred to SCI- Greene and promoted to facility chaplaincy program director. When SCI-Pittsburgh reopened in 2007, she was invited to return to that facility and served as the chaplaincy program director there until it closed again in 2017.

Walking with both the inmates and staff during this transition was a difficult time, and Hooker said she witnessed officers offer sympathy to inmates who had no control over where they would be moved.

Hooker received the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Outstanding Performance Award in 2007 and was nominated for the Thomas A. Fulcomer Award in 2013.

In April 2017, she was honored by Pittsburgh Theological Seminary as a Distinguished Alumna for Excellence in a Specialized Ministry. In addition to her work with the incarcerated, she answered a call in March 2016 to serve as a quarter-time pastor at the Presbyterian Church of Mt. Washington.

Hooker lives in Peters Township with her husband, Michael, who is a former chef and instructor at the Pennsylvania Culinary in Pittsburgh.