Karen Blankenship is a Staff Nurse in both the Health Care Center (HCC) and in Assisted Living. She is someone who quietly goes about her duties and very much does not want to ever be "in the limelight". For that reason we are very grateful that when approached for an interview, even though she initially declined, she finally, graciously, said yes.

Karen came to St. Simeon's on June 27^th, eight years ago. Previously she had earned a business degree from Tulsa Junior College (now called Tulsa Community College or TCC) and been in retail business for most of her working life. She worked at Trippett's Shoes for 15 years but felt that she wanted a more "personal" kind of career.

TCC offered a course called Job Search. The purpose of this class is to find out what you would be really happy with as a career. Karen found out that she should consider being a dietitian or a nurse and since she knew she hated public speaking, she thought there would be less need for that as a nurse.

She enrolled at the University Center at Tulsa (now called Oklahoma State University/Tulsa) and worked in the Admissions Office while she got her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing - in other words she is an RN or Registered Nurse. While in school she also worked on holidays and weekends in the senior assisted nursing program at St. Francis Hospital.

As part of finishing her degree Karen "did her clinicals" in another long-term facility and found that she really liked working with senior citizens but she knew that she didn't want to work there. On the other hand, some of her fellow classmates did their clinicals at St. Simeon's and spoke highly of it. She passed her state boards on a Thursday, visited St. Simeon's on a Sunday, applied for a job on Monday, was promptly hired, and the rest is history. Lucky for us!

Karen feels that working with older people is the most rewarding work that she could ever do. "There is no other job in which even a small thing like giving a drink of water is so appreciated." And she is proud of the way residents are treated here and hopes that, "Someday, someone will do the same for me."

She is the proud mother of two sons, Devin and Dustin. Devin lives in Broken Arrow where he works for Xeta (pronounced Zeta) which is a computer company that installs computers in hotels that monitor long distance calls. He and his wife, Kara, have two sons -- Christopher, four years old and Brandon, six years old. Dustin lives here in Tulsa and is in management with Fox Cleaners. He and his wife, Heather, have one daughter, Mia Raine, two years old and she is the first girl in the family in a long, long time! Karen's grandchildren are a big priority in her life when she is not "on the road" - more about that later.

Karen refers to her home as her "cave". It is actually a condo on Riverside Drive that is done in earth tones with lots of plants - artificial ones now (the others died while she was on one of her trips), soothing candles, and a CD player playing relaxing music. All combine to help her unwind from the stress of her job. She also had a pet goldfish who died (see the plant comment) and doesn't plan on replacing him.

Living on Riverside Drive, she has one of the nicest places to walk in Tulsa right outside her door - the River Parks bicycle and hiking trail system. Each day she walks past the Creek Nation Bingo Parlor all the way to the old bridge that goes into Jenks. This is a three-mile round trip. The new Aquarium that is almost completed will be just two blocks from her home.