Baptist Anderson awards nursing scholarships

May 22—Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center awarded scholarships to seven Meridian Community College nursing students Tuesday as part of a decades-long partnership supporting the college's outstanding students.

At a luncheon recognizing the scholarship recipients, John Anderson, CEO of Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center, said this year marks the 36th year the hospital has provided scholarships to students in the nursing program. During that time, he said, the hospital has developed a close relationship with MCC and its nursing program staff.

"This relationship goes back many, many years and is vitally this organization as we are able to recruit and retain talent and nurses to be able to take care of the patients who cross our threshold each and every day," he said.

Anderson said the hospital has seen nurses graduate from MCC and make remarkable achievements working at the hospital. Some of those nurses then go back to the college to pass what they've learned onto future generations of nurses, he said.

MCC President Tom Huebner said offering classroom instruction in the nursing field is something any college is capable of offering. Through the partnership with Baptist Anderson Regional Medical Center, he said, MCC is able to train nurses to fill vital jobs in the community.

"Any college can have a place to train people, but to have places where they can work and where they can become what they were created to be is very, very important," he said. "So this partnership is very important."

Andrea Sciple, who was awarded the Baptist Anderson Board of Directors Scholarship, has already started her nursing career at Baptist Anderson where she works as a licensed practical nurse in the emergency room. Between her coursework at MCC and experience on the job, she said she feels well prepared to enter the healthcare field upon graduation next May.

"I like helping people, especially in the ER," she said. "It's fun. It's interesting. You see a lot of different stuff."

Receiving the scholarship, Sciple said, is an honor and an immense help in offsetting some of the cost of higher education.

"It's going to help so much," she said.

In addition to Sciple, scholarship recipients include:

— Rebecca Campbell, who was awarded the Dr. Jeff Anderson Scholarship.

— Keleigh Moore, who was awarded the Dr. William J. Anderson Jr. Scholarship.

— Emily Arias, who was awarded the Dr. W.J. Anderson III Scholarship.

— Keri Hans, who was awarded the William J. Gunn Esquire Scholarship.

— Mallory Ross, who was awarded the Dr. Jefferson F. Hollingsworth Scholarship.

— Amber Lewis, who was awarded the Reuben S. Johnson Jr. Scholarship.

Scholarship recipients had to meet strict requirements to be eligible for the award, Anderson said, including being enrolled full time, receiving a B or higher in certain courses, maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher and writing an essay on why they chose to pursue nursing as a career.

"Each recipient today had to meet all of those criteria to get one of these scholarships," he said, "So it's a challenge in its own right, and these are well deserved scholarships."

Contact Thomas Howard at thoward@themeridianstar.com