Classmate Spotlight
Frankie Glasgow Taylor Shepherd ’65
We would like to profile some of our alumni who have made a difference in their community. Our very first alumni we will shine a little light upon is Frankie Glasgow Taylor Shepherd ’65.
Frankie spent the 10 years following THS graduation working for the Fort Lewis Public Relations office and as a transcriptionist for Madigan Army Medical Center while raising her two children. She then spent 31 years as staff assistant for PR at Providence St. Peter Hospital as well as inputting data for the PSPH Cancer Registry.
In Sept. 2008 Frankie retired, but after 3 months decided she needed to be working at least part time. St. Peter Hospital’s Spiritual Care Department asked her to come facilitate and implement an employee/community volunteer program called No One Dies Alone or NODA for short. This program was started by nurse Sandra Clarke, RN at Sacred Heart Medical in Eugene, OR in 2001 after she realized that some patients have no one to sit with them as they are dying and nurses are often too busy caring for other patients to be able to. Frankie is the program’s coordinator (scheduled part-time hours and on-call for after hour vigils) at Providence St. Peter Hospital; often filling in when no other trained volunteer is available to sit vigil. And, yes, she also runs the training sessions for the volunteers. NODA has eased 233 patients into their final moments and has 110 volunteers doing this at both St. Peter Hospital and its affiliated nursing care facility, Mother Joseph Care Center. She still manages to have time for her 2 sons, five granddaughters and one great-granddaughter. Frankie was also the past captain of the St. Peter Relay for Life team!
NODAs funding comes from St. Peter Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps with numerous programs run at the hospital. Should you wish to volunteer you can page Frankie at 360-709-3531, and if you think this is a great organization that you’d like to support financially you can go to www.washington.providence.org/donate/st-peter-foundation for contact info about how to do that. There currently is no donation button for NODA or any of the other programs they support but I’m sure you can donate designating that you want it to go to the NODA program.
If you know any alums who have made a difference or have an interesting pastime or career, email us.