Record details
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In January, I relocated from Tyler, Texas, to Madison, Wisconsin, and the long drive allowed me to reflect on my life, including the important role education has played.
I grew up in Battle Mountain, Nevada. I was home schooled, so my parents were my first teachers. They both loved to read, and they instilled that love in us as well. My younger sister, Kimberley, wanted to read so badly that she pretended to read with us, not realizing she was holding her book upside down!
My parents had a mobile home business and during the winters, Daddy had to shovel snow off the roofs and fix broken pipes that had frozen. When I was eighteen, he purchased a mini-storage business in Tyler that would never have frozen plumbing or snow issues!
With its wonderful opportunities for higher education, Tyler was a great choice for our family. I had always wanted to be a nurse, but because I was home schooled, I worried I would have trouble with science lab work. My advisor, Carol Gilliland, arranged for me to be an unpaid lab assistant the summer before my classes started to let me gain experience. After that first year, TJC hired me as a paid lab and science tutor! This was just one example of how TJC treated me as an individual, instead of making me feel like a little fish in a big ocean. They also allowed me to substitute courses that were best for my situation such as taking ballet instead of a kinesiology course and Spanish instead of speech.
TJC and the community helped me in so many ways. I was awarded the Rusty Ingram Fletcher Presidential Scholarship which meant a lot both financially and personally. My professors, including great teachers like Dr. Betsy Ott, Dr. Idalia Trent and John Hays, always inspired me to study hard. I still marvel at the depth of their subject matter knowledge that allowed them to lecture without notes. All my experiences at TJC were great because of supportive people who wanted their students to be successful.
After taking my prerequisites for nursing at TJC, I earned my BSN degree at UT Tyler. They have an excellent nursing program with fine teachers and I especially loved my clinical experiences. I was well prepared at both TJC and at UT Tyler to become a nurse.
After graduation, I worked at ETMC as an oncology nurse. During my 11 years there, I served as a preceptor for student nurses from TJC and UT Tyler. I saw the quality of both programs and can attest that East Texas produces some of the finest nurses anywhere.
Oncology nurses are particularly passionate about what they do and I was inspired by my co-workers, but my biggest inspiration came from our patients – they go through things that many people can’t even imagine, and they do it with grace and an amazing attitude.
After seeing my experiences, my sister Kimberley also chose to pursue her nursing career through TJC and UT Tyler, and her experiences mirrored mine. She is now a labor and delivery nurse at ETMC.
My younger brother, Stephen, didn’t want to go to college at all but we persuaded him to try TJC and he loved it. In fact this “reluctant student” went on to get two bachelor’s degrees at UNT before graduating from Yale Law School. Having decided not to practice law, he has gone back to his first love and is now pursuing his Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Washington.
Now I am settled into my new home in Madison, a beautiful city with the state capitol, a major university and a wonderful quality of life. I’m excited about where God has led me and proud that anyone can start at Tyler’s public colleges and go wherever they want to in life. I’m thrilled to be here as Administrator of the State Division of Public Health and I’ll be forever grateful to those who helped me along
the way. - Biography
- TJC Hero and Friend Karen McKeown’s scholarship and hard work have led to numerous awards and accomplishments at a young age. After graduating summa cum laude from both TJC and UT Tyler, she earned a master’s degree (with honors) in nursing management, policy and leadership from Yale. She also did fellowships for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and the Heritage Foundation. At ETMC, Karen supervised over 80 staff members in the oncology units. In January, she was appointed to head the State of Wisconsin’s Division of Public Health.
