Texas School Nurse:
Becky Culpepper

22 Jan 1998
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Page 5

National School Nurse Day on Wednesday, Jan. 28, will usher in a string of coincidences for Trinity High School nurse Becky Culpepper.

Culpepper, 60, is celebrating her 28th year as a school nurse and her 25th year at Trinity High in Euless.

Culpepper said she views National School Nurse Day as an opportunity to make people aware of school nurses and their roles.

She said that during the years, school nursing has changed from mainly dispensing first aid to a more complicated job that requires providing medication and administering tube feedings and catheterizations to some students. School nurses also screen students for vision and hearing problems as well as for some diseases, such as scoliosis, Culpepper said.

"We've come a long way. I used to have four schools, but now we have a nurse in every school. Here, at Trinity, we have two," she said. "I am the school nurse, and Lynn Sulak works mainly with the special needs students here and at several other campuses."

Culpepper said she began her career when her children started school. She had worked in a hospital and a doctor's office but took the job with Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district so she could be home when her children were.

Until last year, students with severe physical handicaps attended the district's Transition Center in Bedford. Now, the campus is for special-needs adults ages 18 to 21. The younger students have been mainstreamed into local schools.

"We're dealing with more special-needs situations, tube feedings, catheterizations and a lot more medications," Culpepper said.

Culpepper said she has seen a change in the parents during the years, more than a change in the students. "What amazes me is how parents don't feel it's their responsibility to see their child is in school. The parents cover for them. They call in sick for them and allow them to stay home," she said.

"We were seeing 60 to 70 kids a day saying they were sick and wanting to go home," Culpepper said.

But since the district's attendance policy went into effect this school year, attendance has been high, she said. Students who have good attendance records and grades can be exempted from final examinations. But students who miss too many days of school and cannot produce a doctor's note must go to classes on Saturdays to make up absences or risk losing credit for courses, Culpepper said. - Susan Wilhelm

(Becky retired in May 2000).

Culpepper Ancestry. Becky is Rebecca Lucille Shuptrine, wife of Evan Alexander Culpepper, IV, and will be found in the Culpepper Family Tree.