Who Will be a Force for Mental Health Learning? Spartans Will.
October26, 2017
As we mark the one-year anniversary of McLaren Greater Lansing creating the Endowed Chair for Behavioral Mental Health Nursing Education (the College of Nursing’s first endowed chair), here’s a story partly inspired by that gift.
Sharon King (CON BSN ‘63) says she established the Amy L. King Memorial Endowment for Mental Health Education in Nursing because nurses need to feel more confident they can identify patient’s problems.
“I think we can do better, and that’s what this endowment is all about.”
King Endowment is Force for Mental Health Learning
When Sharon established the Amy L. King Memorial Endowment for Mental Health Education in Nursing in memory of her youngest daughter, she says she did so because it made sense to her. Amy, who had resided in Grosse Pointe, died in 2016, and Sharon hoped to make something very positive happen out of a negative, while helping nurses feel more confident they can identify patient problems.
Sharon adds that she knows there is a need from her first-hand experience as both a Spartan Nurse and teacher.
Finding a Way Forward
By her junior year in high school, Sharon knew she wanted to become a nurse. So, when she was accepted into the Sparrow Hospital nurses training program, she thought she was on her way. Then, Sparrow announced it was closing the program.
“I was in deep despair,” Sharon says. “Our county extension agent had come to visit our family farm near Dimondale, that day, and I was sitting there reading the letter and moping. I’d been in 4-H forever, and he said, ‘Well, why don’t you apply for the 4-H scholarship, and maybe you can go to Michigan State?’
“So, I did and was fortunate enough that 4-H paid for my tuition. I hadn’t even considered going to a college for nurses’ training. Back in 1959, it wasn’t that common. If it hadn’t been for 4-H, I don’t think I’d have become a Spartan nurse.”
Enrolling in 1959, Sharon received her BSN from MSU in 1963 and, while at MSU, met her future husband, Darrell King, who was finishing up his PhD. Remarkably, they were both the first in their families to earn a college degree. Darrell had grown up in Philipsburg, MT, a town of 1,000 people midway between Missoula and Anaconda, and had earned his bachelor’s degree from Montana State.
“Our families were very proud of our degrees, because our folks had always placed a high value on education,” Sharon notes. “Neither family had a lot of resources to support us in school, but they truly believed that the only path to a better life was through education. And I knew from watching my parents that farming 40 acres of stony ground was a tough way to make a living.”
Sharon and Darrell married and, in 1964, moved to Columbia, MO, where Mr. King had been offered his first teaching job at the University of Missouri. The Kings stayed 10 years at Mizzou, over which time, they had three daughters.
Back to East Lansing
When the couple returned to East Lansing in 1974, Sharon was hired by Ingham Medical, which later becomes McLaren Greater Lansing, and Darrell became a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
“By that time, I’d got itchy to go back to school,” Sharon says, “so, I went through MSU’s Nurse Practitioner program, and fell in love with research. I ended up working as a research assistant for Dr. Barb Given, and earning my PhD in Educational Psychology.
Sharon adds that it wasn’t a long-term plan or anything; she was just taking advantage of the opportunities as they arose.
“For instance, I’d never thought I wanted to teach. It scared me and I was just terrified. But it turned out, I loved it. The students who came into the master’s program at that time had work experience under their belts. They were challenging and exciting, but they knew why they were in school, and you didn’t have to tell them twice to study something that you thought was important. They were good, highly motivated people.”
Sharon taught in the College’s Nurse Practitioner program, specializing in Gerontology from 1988 to 1999, and notes that the role of the “nurse practitioner” was fairly new, and not a common role at the time.
“So, part of what we tried to do, was encourage them to become politically active, help carve out the Nurse Practitioner role, and get the policies written that would legitimize it.”
Sharon quit her job with the College of Nursing in 1999 and Darrell retired from MSU on January 1, 2000, intent on starting the new millennium with a fresh start.
“Darrell’s health was deteriorating, and we wanted to spend time together and travel,” she says. “So, we bought a little motor home and traveled all over, from Savannah, GA, up to Nova Scotia, clear across Canada, and all the way down the west coast. We did that for probably 10 years, and just loved it.”
Sharon says that Darrell died in 2014. She notes that their eldest daughter, also a Spartan Nurse, lives in Ann Arbor, while their middle daughter lives in Seattle.
Speaking again of her gift to the MSU College of Nursing, Sharon says, “The goal of the endowment in Amy’s name is to enhance mental health education in nursing. Nurses have such unique opportunities everywhere they work to identify mental health problems and steer patients to the help they need.
“I think we can do better, and that’s what this endowment is all about.”
