SFCC nursing students take 'one big step' with graduation, pinning ceremony

Jessica Cooper knows her next year of nursing school will be significantly easier than the one she just completed.

“It will be a lot less stressful,” Cooper said. “I got married and had a baby this time, and I won’t be doing that again.”

Cooper, 27, was one of 22 State Fair Community College practical nursing program students who graduated and received their pins Thursday afternoon in the Thompson Conference Center on the school’s Sedalia campus. Cooper was chosen by her fellow students as the class speaker, and she focused her address on the bonds they built, infusing her words with humor throughout.

“This year in nursing school we learned so much, I just hope we remember it all when it comes time for us to take our boards,” she said.

Cooper said one of the things they learned is nursing students “are constantly diagnosing yourself and your family members with things that you learned about in class.”
She also asked her classmates a question that elicited some laughs: “Will you ever forget who was with you the first time you started a catheter on a real person, or the first time you helped a woman deliver a baby, or the first time you gave a bed bath to someone who wasn’t wearing a swim suit?”

Right after high school, Cooper got married and had her daughter, Sierra. She divorced soon after and, as a single mother, decided to go back to school to provide for her now 8-year-old daughter.

“I started asking myself, ‘Why? What am I going for?’ ” she said. “Then my (now) mother-in-law said, ‘You should think about nursing, you like people.’ It just kind of snowballed from there.”

Gidget Cooper, of Wichita Falls, Texas, has been in nursing for six years, and currently serves as director of nursing for a home health care agency.

She said it is a great career field and that “there always is a need for nurses.”

Gidget said since Jessica and Gidget’s daughter, Danielle, both are divorced, “I stressed that they need to be able to depend on themselves. Nursing is a great way to do that.”

Rhonda Hutton-Gann, SFCC Nursing Program administrator, said graduation day “is always a great opportunity to celebrate students’ accomplishments.” About 90 percent of the practical nursing graduates return to school for the Associate Degree Nursing program; “Our program is designed so students can seamlessly transition into the next phase,” Hutton-Gann said.

Jessica Cooper is one of those students. She expects to build on the fundamentals she learned the past year as she works toward a December 2012 graduation. But she doesn’t plan to stop there, as she expects to continue her schooling to become a nurse practitioner or a midwife.

Cooper said she got plenty of support from her family, especially her husband, Bobby, who handled housework while she studied. Their son, Andrew, 5 months, was born at the end of the summer semester and “was a nursing student for about two weeks,” Cooper said.

“I had him on Saturday, and I returned to class on Tuesday,” bringing her baby boy along.
Hutton-Gann said of the students, “To succeed, they have to eat, live and breathe nursing. We tell them that this is the most challenging time of their life.”

During commencement, SFCC President Dr. Marsha Drennon said, “These students ... have completed one big step in their lives, and have significantly increased their opportunities for success. ... The changes you will see will be phenomenal, but you are well-prepared to address those changes and meet the challenges inherent in your profession and advance in your skills.”

Cooper is confident she will find success in the field. Why?

“I like people, and I like to stay busy. And I’m not easily grossed out.”