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			Willene Jones Grant, 52N, of Elberton, Ga., has served the first of a five-year term on the state board of the Georgia Department of Human Resources. Grant represents Georgia’s 9th Congressional district on the 15-member board, which sets Georgia Department of Human Resources policy and approves goals and objectives. She is also a nursing instructor at Athens Technical College. Her nursing experience has been mainly in education and administration, most recently as director of quality management and nursing service at Elbert Memorial Hospital. She has also worked at Emory University, Macon, and Hall County hospitals. Her late husband was Superior Court Judge William F. Grant, and she has two children.

			Merttie Cannon Saunders, 62N, of Newton, Mass., was a guest lecturer at Harvard University last August. As case manager for Partners Home Care in Boston, she addressed students and faculty of the University of Tokyo’s Social Welfare Summer Program. According to her husband, Edward M. Saunders Jr., her lecture focused on the history of gerontological nursing in the United States.
			Patricia L. Starck, 60N, 63MN, is now dean of the University of Texas School of Nursing at Houston. She has been affiliated with UT-Houston Health Science Center since 1984 and holds the position of The John P. McGovern Distinguished Professor. She has more than 20 years of educational and administrative experience combined with nearly 35 years of nursing. Starck is a licensed advanced nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist in psychiatry/mental health. In addition to other degrees, she is a 1997 graduate of the Institute for Educational Management at Harvard.


			Anne Shirah Dykes, 78N, recently received the 2004 Clinical Nurse Specialist of the Year Award from the National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists. Dykes is a perinatal clinical nurse specialist with the St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System and lives in Richmond Hill, Ga., with her two daughters.

			Capt. Mary (Dawson) Lambert, 81MN, has relocated to Atlanta from Washington, D.C., to serve as acting chief of the communications branch in the HIV/AIDS prevention division of the CDC. Before returning to Atlanta, Lambert directed the civilian Medical Reserve Corps in the Office of the Surgeon General in the US Department of Health and Human Services. She held several positions in D.C., including a yearlong assignment at the White House (the USA Freedom Corps) and in the Office of the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, following 9/11. She also reports that her son, Kashta Lambert, has returned from active duty in Iraq. A 1998 graduate of West Point, Kashta was awarded the Bronze Star.
			Elizabeth Hilliard Sexton, 81N, and her husband, John Sexton, 82N, are full-time medical missionaries with Mission to the World. They prepare missionaries to practice medicine in developing countries, especially during disasters and in locales where no health care is available. The Sextons not only teach but lead medical teams in the field. “In natural disasters, we may be called upon to assess whether a medical team is practical in the area and to work with the disaster teams that are sent,” says John. “That is what Elizabeth was doing in Bam, Iran, last January (2004), after the earthquake. A few days after she got back, I left for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I was assessing a new ministry there to care for AIDS patients in their homes.” In August, John accompanied a team to help with a pneumonia epidemic in the high Andes of Peru. Also last summer, the Sextons and their two daughters went to Belize, where Elizabeth and John taught national health promoters about diabetes, which is extremely high among Belizeans. They also instructed them on nutrition, STDs, preparing for hurricanes, and caring for AIDS patients in the home and the community. “I think we both got interested in training national lay health workers during our Emory nursing days,” says John. “A year after Elizabeth and I married, we went to the jungles of Peru for two years and trained village health promoters. We have just carried on since then.”
			Cherry Spencer-Stark, 81MN, is a staunch opponent of the state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Georgia, which voters approved in the November 2004 election. A longtime political activist, Spencer-Stark said the debate over the issue was more about election-year politics than moral values. As quoted in the Marietta Daily Journal last September, Spencer-Stark said the amendment was “intended to ... take focus away from the economy ... and the job base in Georgia.” For the past two years, she has served as president of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. She also serves on the national steering committee of Freedom to Marry, a group working to establish “civil marriage equality” and to oppose efforts around the country to limit equality. Spencer-Stark was a founding co-chair of Georgia Equality, a Cobb County-based gay and lesbian rights group. She and her husband, James E. Stark, shared the Cobb County Democrat of the Year Award in 2002. Spencer-Stark is a forensic nurse consultant who works in private practice with James, a forensic psychologist. They have four grown sons and two granddaughters.
			BORN: To Mary Scott Smith, 86N, and her husband, Gregory, a son, Grayson Scott Smith, on March 10, 2003. Greg is a 1994 Allied Health graduate from Emory in physical therapy. Grayson has four older sisters—Lilly, Anna, Julia, and Leah. The family lives in Weaverville, N.C.

			BORN: To Joseph Odell Smith II, 03N, and his wife, Tanya, a son, Joseph O. Smith III, on March 15, 2004, at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. “Parenthood is great—tiring but great,” writes the new father.


			Sally Cagle Evans, 32N, of Avondale Estates, Ga., on May 6, 2004, at age 93. Born in White Plains, Ga., Evans grew up in Jasper, Ga., and graduated from Crawford W. Long Hospital School of Nursing. “A nursing light has left us,” writes Lynette Wright, clinical associate professor in the School of Nursing. “Dean Salmon has often spoken about nurses who have influenced our decision to choose nursing. Sally Cagle Evans was one such person. No matter what her role was in life, Sally was always a nurse. “She was a nurse at Emory Hospital on several occasions, most remarkably returning to the oncology floor after her husband’s death when she was over 60 years old. She exemplified caring in so many ways. On the oncology floor the life lessons she brought to her patients were often more valuable than the chemotherapy. Sally was my friend from the time I was a toddler and was one of those people who always encouraged others. She had a keen sense of humor, a caring heart, and a love of cucumber sandwiches. She will be missed,” says Wright.

			Kathryn Pope Haisten, 42N, of Jackson, Ga., on June 23, 2004, at age 82. Haisten was the first director of nursing at Sylvan Grove Hospital in Jackson and was a public health nurse in the Butts County Health Department for more than 25 years. She was also a volunteer for the Red Cross and served on its board in Butts County for more than 30 years. She worked locally with the United Way, the Salvation Army, and the Butts County Disabilities Boosters. Her husband, the late Ben M. Haisten, died in 1973.
			Nannie Ora Dodgen, 47N, on July 10, 2004, at age 77, at the Hospice of the Golden Isles in Brunswick, Ga. Dodgen was a native of Florida and lived on St. Simons Island near Brunswick for three years.
			Wilma Harris Elrod, 47N, of Roswell, Ga., on May 28, 2004, at age 76. Elrod worked as a nurse and kindergarten teacher. She was involved in her church, Northbrook United Methodist Church in Roswell, and with her community. She was married to Jason W. Elrod for 51 years. “She was proud of her affiliation with Emory and the nursing school,” says daughter Sally Dwelle.
			Clare Stewart Moore, 47N, formerly of Canton, Ga., died in Norfolk, Va., on May 20, 2004, at age 79. Moore worked in Georgia as a public health nurse in Walton County and as a trained licensed practical nurse in Cherokee and Pickens counties. She was instrumental in establishing a special education program in Cobb and Cherokee counties. According to her obituary in The Atlanta Journal–Constitution, Moore and her husband, U.G. “George” Moore, worked diligently to bring the Georgia Baptist Church Group Home into being. She was a longtime member of the First Baptist Church of Canton.


			Nancy Rood Reitinger, 56N, of Gainesville, Fla., on Feb. 2, 2004. She is survived by her husband, Robert H. “Bob” Reitinger; a daughter, Gail Seger; and a son, Philip Reitinger.

			Laura Suzanne Sorrells, 71N, of Atlanta, died in late 2003. She is survived by her husband, A. Terry Sorrells.


			Carol Marie Letourneaux Oliver, 95MN, of Grayson, Ga., on Aug. 28, 2004, at age 56. According to a family announcement, Oliver lost a vigilant battle to kidney cancer. Born in Glendale, Calif., she first graduated from nursing school in 1971 and moved to Los Angeles. She then spent 23 years in the small town of Alpine, Calif., at the foot of the San Diego mountains. In 1994, Oliver came to Emory to earn her master’s in nursing and become a nurse practitioner. Although she returned to family out west, she came back to Georgia in 1998, when she met her husband, Thomas Oliver, and began living in Grayson. She worked at Emory Eastside Medical Center in Snellville, Ga., until becoming ill.

			Rachel E. Rogers, 28, on Sept. 25, 2004. Rogers was a student in the pediatric nurse practitioner program at Emory who worked as a registered nurse at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. Before attending Emory, she graduated from Kennesaw State University School of Nursing. “Although Rachel was short in stature, she was 10 feet tall in the eyes of her co-workers, physicians, and those who knew her, but never too tall to stoop down and speak to her little patient and say, ‘Hi, my name is Rachel, and I am going to be your nurse today,’ ” said Marsha Jackson, Roger’s supervisor at Children’s, in her eulogy. “Let us not forget the most important part of this incredible person and that was her heart. Oh what a huge heart she had filled with love for her patients, their families, her co-workers, and Children’s.” Memorial contributions may be sent to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, 1687 Tullie Circle, N.E., Atlanta, Ga. 30329.
			Correction
			Due to a clerical error, the Spring 2004 issue of Emory Nursing incorrectly reported that nursing alumna Sally Horton Jones, 66MN, (formerly Sally Ann Horton) had died. We are happy to report that Jones is alive and well in Kings Mountain, N.C., where she serves as a reviewer for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. We apologize for the error.
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