The Oregon Coast Community College Foundation will soon have a new student nursing scholarship, thanks to Teresa Watts and Nancy Steurer. The two ladies, who are nurses, are working their way away from bedside nursing according to Watts who said, "We feel we need to help educate our replacements so we decided to start a scholarship for nursing students at Oregon Coast Community College."

Watts and Steurer decided to call their scholarship the Renegade Nurse Scholarship because they believe strongly that an individual has to be a renegade to be a good nurse. Watts said, "To be a good patient advocate nurses must question authority; some of the best nurses that I know are the ones who "think out of the box." As nurses, we spend more time with the patient than the doctor. It is our job, as a professional, to question the doctor, the family and the patient. We do this to ensure that our patients receive the quality care they deserve."

In order to help fund the Renegade Nurse Scholarship, Watts and Steurer, with the willing assistance of local models, created the 2007 Pin-up Nurse calendar. The twelve models for the calendar vary in age both from time working as a nurse, one model has been a nurse for 52 years, to actual age with the youngest in her 20's. "Of course,' Steurer said, "our calendar wouldn't be complete if we didn't include at least one male nurse." The models backgrounds vary from hospital ER nurse to massage therapist to an LPN.

Nursing students: Jessica Burrows, Cheryl Wittmier, Tammy Miller and Lori Roeser. (back row L to R) Nursing students: Kelly Tokar and Karla Schafer, and Teresa Watts and Nancy Steurer SPCH nurses who have started the scholarship.

The calendars can be purchased for $8.00 at the OCCC Centers in Newport and Lincoln City.
To donate to the Renegade Nurse Scholarship, please call A.T. Ronan at (541) 574-7131.

Oregon Coast Community College