2013 Health Care Champions Honoree: Betty Ann Harris

Betty Ann Harris has worked at CoxHealth for 43 years. Well, sort of.

The 82-year-old Harris has volunteered her time with the health care provider for more than four decades, work she considers a labor of love.

“It’s like tithing,” she says, “but with time.”

At the height of the Great Depression, when Harris was just 7 years old, she and her family moved in with her grandparents. It was a close-knit family who listened to the radio, played games together and sewed clothes for extra money.

“We didn’t realize we were poor,” Harris says. “Everyone was. We just made the best with what we had.”

Harris grew up Commercial Street and graduated from Central High School in 1949, though she’s quick to point out it was called Springfield Senior High School at the time.

Her graduating class is a sponsor of the recently revitalized Kilties drum corps, and she is co-chairwoman of the planning effort for the group’s 65th class reunion next summer. Harris has taken the lead mainly because she is one of the few who can use a computer.

As a child, Harris had always wanted to become a nurse, but economics of the day dictated that she focus on helping with her family. After having her children in the 1950s, Harris began her adult life of service as board president of Weller preschool – the equivalent of first grade at the time.

“I stuck my foot in the door right then and just kept on,” Harris says. “I worked with PTAs, as bluebird leader and so on, all through the years.”

As her son graduated from high school in 1970, Harris realized it was time to find a greater pursuit outside of the home.

“I felt safe that they were OK, and I’d taught them as much as I could,” she says. “There comes a time when you just have to turn them loose … and pray. Once they were on their way then it was time to help someone else.”

She began as a volunteer with the L.E. Cox Hospital, now Cox North and Burge Hospital in the 1960s when staff cared for her mother.

“I worked at the front information desk,” she says. “One time I tried volunteering in X-ray, but the patient on the gurney was far bigger than me, and the director decided it would be safer if I worked elsewhere.”

She has been a regular volunteer ever since, pausing only briefly last summer while recovering from a broken back.

“I had to get back to work,” she says. “I had made up my mind that there were two things that I was going to do – get back to Sunday school and get back to work.”

Harris still drives to Cox South from her home in Strafford for regular volunteer shift every Tuesday – four-and-one-half hours as she puts it – still at the information desk.

Harris currently holds the record for time on the job as a volunteer at CoxHealth.

“I feel like I am in a whirlwind of change for the better,” she says. “I see new technology happening every day. I remember when I started in 1970 and (I) marvel at the difference.”

Through all her service, Harris remains humble.

“I receive much more than I give,” she says. “I am not a professional person, I am just a person who has something to give to others and we know we should share our time as best as we can.”[[In-content Ad]]