Photos by Alan Olson LEFT: One half of the graduating class from the B.M. Spurr School of Practical Nursing accept their certificates. Pictured, from left, back row: Hannah Pimintel, Jasmine Williams, Kyrie Menendez, Lacey Apostolec. Front row, from left: Miranda Hall, Maggie Conner and Ellen Swegard

GLEN DALE — When asked how they felt to go out into a world beset by worsening COVID-19 outbreaks, the response from graduating nursing students was the same — it’s been their reality for more than a year.

“It’s all we’ve known since we started,” said Shayna Caldwell, one of the 13 students graduating from the WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital’s B.M. Spurr School of Practical Nursing.

The nursing students graduated Thursday morning, their graduating class split into two groups to manage crowd size in the moderately-sized Bette Beebe Habig Room in the hospital’s basement. Dozens of friends, family and loved ones came to support the students who endured a decidedly atypical educational period.

Terri Lyons, director of the school of nursing, said the graduates faced a hectic year, one which, unlike previous classes, was fully engulfed in the pandemic.

“I do want to congratulate them on completing this year,” Lyons said. “Nursing school here is like a full-time job, so next week will be the 52nd week. They’ve been at this for a while, and they have persevered. They started school in the middle of a pandemic, and they’re finishing it in — who knew? — we’re still in it.

“… They’re well prepared to go out and deal with this in whatever health care setting they end up in,” Lyons continued. “We’ve had a ton of employers looking for them, they get a lot of hands-on training here because they’re in a hospital setting where they go to school, so I think it’s been a really big benefit for them.”

Lyons said that graduates tend to scatter to all sorts of local facilities, on both sides of the Ohio River, ranging from long-term care facilities to medical facilities in corrections, while others go to school systems or to hospitals.

“It’s a fear of the unknown, but that’s what our job is going to be, so we have to just go into it headfirst,” said Clarissa Paul. “I’ve had to learn how to adapt in health care.”

“It’s very exciting, no matter what, pandemic or not. We were going to have to adapt to health care in any climate,” added Maggie Conner.

The pins for this year’s graduation were dedicated in honor of Jenny Jones McColm, a former director of nursing at Reynolds and John Marshall High School graduate, whose family donated money to the school in her memory.