Catching up

Brian Wilson

A few weeks ago, a reader sent me a copy of an article that ran in the Spring 2021 issue of “The Keystone.” The magazine put out by Arkansas State University-Mountain Home campus.

The article focused on non-traditional students coming back to school to pursue nursing degrees after having other careers.

Admittedly I get a lot of unusual things at the office, including someone who routinely faxes 29-page manifestos about complex plots that read like the outline of a good Dan Brown novel. Lately, my email inbox has been flooded with news releases from businesses and industries I have never heard of before and in some cases never want to hear about again, although I admit I did find learning about an Indiana-based company that has developed a soybean-based concrete sealer pretty fascinating.

In this case, my eye was immediately drawn to the pictures with the article and thought, “Hey, isn’t that Chief Bever.”

Ted Bever was a longtime police officer in the city of Medford serving in a variety of positions from chasing down errant chickens to serving as the city police chief. He retired from that position 11 years ago and moved to Arkansas. According to the article, the now 62-year-old Bever made the decision to go back to school to become a nurse based in part on both he and his wife having cancer in the same year.

The article states: “About four years ago, my wife and I both had cancer in the same year,” he said. “The health care people were just phenomenal, mainly the nurses. So, when we got through that process I wanted to do something decent, a payback kind of thing.

“My daughter, who’s a nurse, said ‘Dad, go back to school and go into nursing.’ I said, ‘I’m too old. I haven’t been to college in 40 years.”

Ted Bever must have made a pretty good impression on the school since when I went to the school’s website to learn more about the place his picture from the article was among the images promoting the school.

It is always great to hear about area folks who go on to do cool and interesting things after leaving the area. I give him a lot of credit for going back to school and going into such a demanding second career as nursing, especially at a point in life when many people are focusing on improving their golf game or honing their fishing skills.

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Reader Donno Van Dake of Curtiss recently shared one of his family’s favorite poems that he said was often recited by his father Louis C. Van Dake. With the setbacks and grief many of us have experienced in the past year, its message is a good one to remember.

Joy Out of Sadness

You learn as the years roll onward And the past is left behind That much you counted sorrow provided that your God was kind. That many a flower you longed for Had a hidden thorn of pain And many a rugged bypath Led to a field of ripened grain.

You must live through the weary winter if you are to value the spring For the woods will be cold and silent Before the robins sing And the flowers must be buried in darkness, Before they can blossom and bloom; For the sweetest and warmest sunshine Comes after the storm and gloom. The heart, in its hardest trials, Gains the purest joy of all, And from the lips that have tasted sadness The sweetest songs may fall. For peace comes after suffering, And love is the reward of pain, So after earth comes heaven, And out of our loss, our gain.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News.