1990 Graduate Recalls Cross-Country Trip to UMHB Nursing School After Last-Minute Phone Call

HERE TO STAY

Just like she thought she’d never come to Belton, Texas, for nursing school, Mary Lou never thought she’d still live here more than 30 years later. Her dream was to move up to the east coast of Maine and spend her nursing career living in a log cabin, enjoying the cool mountain air. During spring break in her senior year, she set out to the New England state to interview with prospective employers along the coast in all the places she’d dreamed of living.

“But the doors just closed, and closed, and closed,” she said. And after she interviewed at her top choice on her list, she discovered it was not what she wanted. “Their philosophy of nursing was not along the lines of mine. It didn’t have the spiritual dimension to it.”

Mary Lou returned to Belton and applied to a mental health facility in Killeen. If she didn’t get the job, she resigned to move back to Florida to be close to family. They hired her on the spot.

Since then, she has worked in child-adolescent psychology and in-home health care before landing at the V.A. Hospital in Temple, where she’s worked as a registered nurse for the last 26 years, most recently as a patient care coordinator. Living just a few blocks from the campus she loves so much, she cherishes hearing the bells from Chapel chiming each morning and has been a football season ticket holder since the stadium opened.

Mary Lou was thrilled to learn that Dr. Jerry Bawcom (who was president when she received her master’s degree) would be at Homecoming this past year, dubbing students who graduated prior to the Dubbing Ceremony becoming part of Welcome Week in the spring of 1995. The tradition was born after students requested a ceremony to “create closer emotional ties to the university.”

“I have loved all of the traditions at UMHB, and getting dubbed reinforced my feeling of belonging,” she said.

Today, more than 36 years later, she is thankful she stepped out on faith and pointed her car west that fateful morning.

“The UMHB friendships I formed and continue to maintain demonstrate my feelings of family and belongingness,” she said. “These friendships are once again confirmation that UMHB is my earthly home and THE place for me.”