Baptist Health Corbin holds ‘Tree of Life’ ceremony for employees who have passed

Baptist Health Corbin Vice-President Mark Steely delivered remarks Monday afternoon during a Tree of Life ceremony in the Paul Parker Pavilion Lobby. A total of 12 new names were added to the tree to represent former hospital staff and volunteers, who passed away during the past year. Below, Chaplin Susan Williams read the names of those, who has passed away over the past year. Bottom, the newly added names were denoted with a purple ribbon.

For people that work at a hospital, death can be a regular occurrence. Even for people accustomed to dealing with death, it is different if it is a co-worker or colleague, who has died.

Monday afternoon was a time for Baptist Health Corbin to remember 12 of their own, who died over the past year with a Tree of Life ceremony.

The ceremony is an annual event that honors employees, retired employees, volunteers and physicians, who have passed away.

Their names were engraved on gold leaves that were added to the Tree of Life, which is located in the Paul Parker Pavilion Lobby of the hospital.

“Several years ago how this all started, our volunteers purchased this tree of memories. They put it in our lobby so we can honor and recognize members of our communities,” explained Baptist Health Corbin Vice-President Mark Steely. “We want to take the time to recognize our former employees, our former volunteers, who have passed away over the past year.”

Chaplin Susan Williams delivered the prayer and read off the new names added to the tree this year, including: Judy Chandler, Teresa Cowden, Kathy Hill, Emma McPherson, Brenda Meadors, John Morgan, Geeta Ishwar Patel, Raymond Roginski, Leland Sawyers, Mike Smith, Crystal Ward Woolum and Karlyle Keith Young.

Newly added names were denoted with a purple ribbon beside them.

“Our condolences for all the family of the loved ones that we come out to recognize today,” Steely added.

Baptist Health Corbin is a 273-bed, acute care facility providing a wide variety of healthcare services to residents of Whitley, Knox, Laurel, Bell, Clay, McCreary counties in Kentucky and Harlan and Campbell counties in Tennessee.