BECKLEY, W.VA. – Melanie Overton was 23 when she walked across the stage at Bluefield State College to receive her associate’s degree in nursing.

It wasn’t the start of a career about which she had long dreamed, but rather the start of what she hoped was a better life.

While in high school, the Wyoming County native focused on business classes, thinking that’s what she would pursue in the future.

But at 20, and the single mother of two children, the future was a bit clouded.

“I was having one of those deep conversations with my aunt who was an LPN in Princeton,” Overton recalled. “It was one of those, ‘what are you going to do with your life?’ talks. I remember saying, ‘I think it’s great that you’re a nurse, but I don’t know if I can do that.’

“And she said, ‘Yes, you can.’”

It helped that she didn’t have to go it alone, as she studied and eventually graduated alongside her aunt, who had decided she, too, would enroll in the two-year associate’s program.

“It was wonderful to have her there with me,” Overton said.

As she progressed through the program, she said it became clear she had made the right decision. And just as she knew nursing was the right career, she said it also became clear exactly what area of nursing held her heart.

“A lot of the students would shy away from surgery, but I was just so fascinated to see how the body functions and learning that if this one thing stops working, it affects all these other things,” she said. “And then to know, and to see, that with surgery you can fix it and make the patient better.

“It was amazing.”

There was no direct path to the OR after graduation, however.

So, with the goal of working her way up, Overton took a position as a floor nurse at Beckley ARH Hospital on June 1, 1993.

She worked on the floor for a couple of years before taking a job with ARH Home Health. Three years later, there were still no openings in the OR, but she got one step closer when she began working in outpatient surgery.

“Then finally,” she said, “a job came open as an OR circulator and I’ve been in the OR ever since.”

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Over the past 21 years, Overton has worked as a circulator, as OR clinical nurse manager and, for the past six years, as OR manager.

In that capacity, Overton is responsible for a variety of things including the finances of the OR, the flow and staffing of the OR, the credentialing of surgeons, central sterile supply, the upkeep of existing equipment and the acquisition of new technology and ensuring every aspect of the OR meets national standards and guidelines.

“I make sure everything is up-to-date and all staff meet all requirements to do their jobs to the highest standards so that we can properly and safely take care of our patients,” she said.

And though the performance of the OR rests on her shoulders, she said every member of her staff – as well as hospital administration — helps with that task.

“They’re phenomenal,” she said. “None of this would happen without them and I tell them that often,” she said. “I can’t take the credit for anything. It’s a group effort and we’re a tightknit group.

“We’re like family.”

That relationship, Overton said, has been on full display in recent months.

In October, following a routine mammogram, Overton, 53, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy with reconstruction in December and was forced to miss eight weeks of work.

“And I cannot tell you how amazing the staff here was,” she said. “At Christmas, they decorated the whole OR in pink ribbons and they did not miss a beat. They were just so wonderful and I’m so grateful.”

Overton is cancer-free today and, though hesitant at first, now takes every opportunity to share her story.

“At first, I didn’t want anyone to know,” she said. “But then I got a letter and a breast cancer pin in the mail from the doctor’s office. I had a certificate thanking me for being brave. I remember standing at the mailbox bawling and I just knew if I didn’t share my story, I wasn’t brave at all.”

Following her diagnosis, Overton said many other women in her life have received mammograms.

“And that makes me so happy,” she said. “I am a huge advocate for routine mammograms, so maybe I went through this because my story will help convince someone else to get one.

“Maybe it will save their life.”

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Overton, who has been married to her husband Rick for 10 years, is the mother of two adult sons, PJ and Zachary, and one adult daughter, Kadi.

She is also the grandmother of two girls, Skyler and Ellie, and one boy, Mikah.

“I love my children, but those grandbabies are my life,” she said.

Overton said she knows it’s not common, especially today, for someone to spend their entire career at one place. It wasn’t her plan either, but she said she knows she’s in the right place.

“When I graduated, I said I’m going to get two years’ experience and then I’m going to go somewhere else,” she recalled. “But I fell in love with this place. You don’t usually get to go to work every day and feel like you’re with family, but that’s how it is here.

“I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else.”

And when she graduated she also vowed that she was done with school forever.

That part of the plan was also off.

In 2019, she returned to the graduation stage at Bluefield State University where she received her bachelor’s degree in nursing.

“That was such a proud moment,” she said, recalling her husband and children watching her from the audience.

Her children, she said, had long told her they knew she went to school to provide for them and to set a good example.

That’s why she graduated the first time, she said. But she went back for a different reason.

“I wanted to finish what I started,” she said. “So, the first time I went to school was for my children.

“When I went back, it was just for me.”

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Appalachian Regional Healthcare (ARH), is a not-for-profit health system operating 14 hospitals in Barbourville, Hazard, Harlan, Hyden, Martin, McDowell, Middlesboro, Paintsville, Prestonsburg, West Liberty, Whitesburg, and South Williamson in Kentucky and Beckley and Hinton in West Virginia, as well as multi-specialty physician practices, home health agencies, home medical equipment stores and retail pharmacies and medical spas. ARH employs approximately 6,700 people with an annual payroll and benefits of $474 million generated into our local economies. ARH also has a network of more than 1,300 providers on staff across its multi-state system. ARH is the largest provider of care and the single largest employer in southeastern Kentucky, and the third-largest private employer in southern West Virginia.