Above, from left, ̨ʹٷվ Community College Foundation Director of Development and Scholarships Robyn Burchfield, Foundation Executive Director Matt Jones, scholarship recipient Jonshuntaya Banks, Associate Degree Nursing Assistant Director Irish Williams and ADN Director Andrea Edwards.
Caregiving is a way of life for ̨ʹٷվ Community College second semester nursing student Jonshuntaya Banks.
Banks, of Camden, has two young sons and is also taking care of her younger brothers, ages 14 and 13, after they lost both their mom, in 2015, and their great-aunt, from covid in 2020. Not only is she in an Associate Degree Nursing program, with a year to go, she is also working at Methodist Rehab.
“I just want to make a difference in health care for people,” said Banks, 22.
Banks was named as the recipient of the Carla McCulloch Scholarship for nursing for 2023-2024. Since 1991, the Carla McCulloch Scholarship has been given to a second semester Associate Degree Nursing student who embodies the traits of the young ̨ʹٷվ Community College nursing student it memorializes.
The scholarship was created by Larry and Carol McCulloch, formerly of Magee but now residents of Roanoke, Va., in memory of their daughter Carla, a Simpson Academy graduate who was a ̨ʹٷվ nursing student at the time of her death in an April 1991 accident.
“Carla was just like many of you sitting in this auditorium right now,” Matt Jones, Executive Director of the ̨ʹٷվ Community College Foundation, told nursing students at the Nursing/Allied Health Center in Jackson. “She had hopes, dreams and thoughts about becoming a nurse.”
Adjectives used to describe her are “fixer, caretaker, counselor, family-oriented, funny, athletic, faithful, even the term bossy,” Jones said. “What does that word bossy really mean? It’s talking about leadership. It’s talking about wanting to step into a spot to fill a gap for somebody who’s sick, who needs somebody to help them along their way, as they’re recuperating,” Jones said.
̨ʹٷվ Director of Associate Degree Nursing Andrea Edwards said that Banks “exhibits many of the qualities that Carla exhibited. She’s driven, she is always enthusiastic. She’s a very caring person. She is a caretaker in her workplace, in school, at home. She always has a positive attitude and is willing to do whatever it takes.”