'I want to make sure that her legacy lives on'

CRESTVIEW — Teresa and Patrick Ryan have established a nursing scholarship dedicated to the memory of a Baker woman.

Teresa Ryan, an Air Force veteran and professor in Northwest Florida State College's Department of Nursing, and her husband, a retired USAF Reserves colonel, credit Jacquie Raud-Everett's service as a Military Order of the Purple Heart volunteer as basis for the scholarship. Raud-Everett died in January after having cancer for two years.

The order organizes fundraisers for different veterans’ organizations and helps combat-wounded veterans having a hard time getting Veterans Administration health care, according to Teresa Ryan.

"They also help with veterans who have not received their awards, especially those who might not have received the Purple Heart,” she said. “They also help those outside MOPH who have not received the earned medals they've attained. Here locally, they also fund several (ROTC) scholarships for high school students.”

PROMOTING VETERANS’ HEALTH

Raud-Everett was instrumental in getting area veterans to discuss their combat-related injuries with nursing program students, the professor said.

"I had started teaching a class at the college on the nursing care of military veteran populations and I wanted the students to hear stories from veterans who'd been injured in combat," she said.

To that end, she contacted the Everetts through MOPH.

While Bill Everett said most veterans are reluctant to discuss their medical history, Raud-Everett, his wife, stressed the program's importance to him and area veterans, Teresa Ryan said.

"She told him (of NWFSC students), 'They'll be the nurses and they will be treating their injuries.'"

She found veterans willing to discuss their injuries for the program.

"The speaking to MOPH veterans — it is something the students really respond well to and they learn so much from the Military Order of the Purple Heart speakers … I want to make sure that her legacy lives on by establishing a scholarship that would help to take care of veterans," Teresa Ryan said.

‘SHE’D BE ELATED’

Bill Everett said his wife would be proud of the scholarship.

"She'd be elated with it," he said. "She worked so well with the veterans and the nurses."

Over the past 10 years, the couple worked with every veterans’ organization in the U.S., helping veterans and family members at Bob Hope Village and other sites as MOPH volunteer officers. The organization presented the Everetts with Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2015 for 15 years of service.

"She was gracious enough to join me in helping veterans (through the MOPH)" after she retired, Bill Everett said. Raud-Everett worked 41 years as a scientist for Palatin Technologies Inc. in New Jersey, retiring in 2004.

Her grace extended beyond military causes, Bill Everett said.

"She was an extraordinary young lady,” he said. “I've never heard a derogatory remark out of her mouth about anybody … All she wanted people to do was be happy and remember her for all she accomplished while she was on the face of the earth.”

Veterans and their dependents will be considered first for the Northwest Florida State College Foundation's Jacquie Raud-Everett Nursing Scholarship.

It provides $1,800 per student per year to two students entering the Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at NWFSC. The money will be used for books, fees and tuition. The scholarship will be extended a second year if the students meet these requirements:

•Nursing Care of Military and Veteran Populations course completion before graduation

•Maintain a 2.5-grade point average

"I'm hoping that we'll be able to award the first two scholarships this fall," Professor Teresa Ryan said of the funding.

FYI

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: 'I want to make sure that her legacy lives on'