Nurses receive honors at 8th annual banquet

by Ann Bucy

SBJ Contributing Writer

To recognize and celebrate what nurses do day in and day out, southwest Missouri's nurses will honor their own May 11 at the eighth annual Nurses Recognition Banquet.

The event will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Highland Springs Country Club.

According to Pat Clutter, a registered nurse who works in St. John's emergency room, the dinner is part of Nurses Week, May 6-12.

"The week is sponsored by the American Nurses Association, among others," she said, "but it was up to us nurses to decide how we wanted to celebrate it locally."

The observance began as a celebration of Florence Nightingale's birthday.

"Nurses don't get a lot of recognition," Clutter said. "People don't really know what we do behind the scenes. If we were going to get recognition for what we do, we had to do it ourselves."

Two nurses who work with Clutter came up with the idea for the banquet and asked her to help out. But now there are also nurses from Columbia North and South, Cox North and South, Lakeland Regional and the U.S. Federal Medical Center who assist with the planning.

It's up to each organization to decide how it will honor its nurses. Some choose a Nurse of the Year, Emergency Nurse of the Year, etc.

Prior to the dinner, Clutter will be speaking on creativity and learning to take risks. The seminar is titled "Follow The Yellow Brick Road ... You're Not In Kansas Anymore!"

The seminar will be be 1-4 p.m. at the U.S.. Medical Center's Staff Development Center. The center is located at 1900 W. Sunshine.

The dinner and seminar together are $40. The seminar alone is $25 and the dinner alone is $22. To register, send payment to Virginia Topf at 3478 Christy Court, Springfield, Mo. 65807. For more information, call 886-6704.

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