City schools dedicate new health clinic in honor of longtime board member
Bardstown Superintendent Brent Holsclaw, board members and others look on as Margie Bradford and Dr. Lindsay Blackmon cut the ribbon marking the official dedication of the Bardstown City Schools Health Clinic on Friday, Oct. 21. The clinic is the result of a partnership between the school district at Physicians to Children and Adolescents.
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Saturday, Oct. 22, 2016, 4 p.m. — The Bardstown City Schools held a very special ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, Oct. 21, to celebrate the opening of the Bardstown City Schools Health Clinic.
The event celebrated the school district’s new clinic and honored the tenacity of one individual who understood both the academic and health benefits of an in-school clinic — former school Bardstown City Schools board member Margie Bradford.
Margie Bradford poses with the clinic plaque.
Holsclaw credited Bradford as being the driving force behind the clinic.
“She had this vision more than two decades ago,” he said of Bradford. “She saw the need and she understood it.”
She learned of school-based health clinics while serving as a health committee member on the National School Board Association. She visited several clinics and saw firsthand the benefits a clinic could mean to students’ success and well-being.
Initial efforts to push forward to establish a clinic hit a number of roadblocks, but that didn’t deter Bradford, he explained.
“If you know Margie Bradford like I know her, she is tenacious — she is determined and never gives up,” he said.
She approached Holsclaw in 2008 and the board again investigated establishing a health clinic — only to hit more roadblocks.
Bradford gets a hug from a clinic staff member during a tour of the clinic on Friday, Oct. 21.
But in 2015, Dr. Lindsay Blackmon of Physicians to Children and Adolescents approached the school board about a health clinic, “and we were all over it,” Holsclaw said. Dr. Blackmon and the office staff helped make the clinic a possibility by find a way to get past the obstacles.
To celebrate the occasion, Holsclaw brought Bradford to the podium at Friday’s event and unveiled a plaque in honor of Bradford’s “resolute commitment to the health and well-being of the students of Bardstown City School.”
Bradford has a long history of working for improved safety and well-being of school students, Holsclaw said.
As a member of a city school PTO in 1973, Bradford headed a petition to create a school nurse position — one of the first such positions in a Kentucky public school system.
She was the first woman elected to a local school board in 1979, and during her 34 years as a school board member, she served in leadership positions with the Kentucky School Board Association and the National School Board Association, with an interest on school safety and student health.
“I was extremely honored and surprised,” she said after the ceremony. “For once you caught me at a loss for words.”
Keeping the dedication under wraps wasn’t an easy task, and required the cooperation of her family who worked to keep her from suspecting anything out of the ordinary.
“I didn’t know my family lie so well,” she quipped.
‘HUGE SUCCESS.’ The clinic — operated in partnership with Physicians to Adolescents & Children — is the first in-school clinic of its type in Nelson County.
It’s been a huge success,” Holsclaw said. The clinic sees an average of 40 students a day, he said. Parents like the convenience of having the clinic in the school. In addition to the health aspect of the clinic, it also is beneficial to the school systems’ academic mission.
“In most cases, after a child is seen they are able to return to the classroom,” he said. “From an academic standpoint, this is an advantage that supports learning in the school system.”
The establishment of the clinic in the school system “has been a long, long journey,” he said.
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