Couple establishes scholarship as tribute to nurse’s career

LEVELLAND – It is said that Florence Nightingale’s philosophy and teachings emphasize that the nurse must use her brain, heart and hands to create healing environments to care for the patient’s body, mind and spirit. For more than 40 years, Joyce Alexander Luck epitomized the essence of Florence Nightingale throughout her career as a nurse.

Charles and Cathy Ehrenfeld have given $10,000 to the Board of Directors of the South Plains College Foundation to establish the Joyce Alexander Luck Memorial Scholarship Endowment to assist South Plains College students. Preference will be given to a first-semester student who has been admitted to the Associate Degree Nursing program.

Luck graduated from nursing school at Hillcrest Memorial in Waco in September 1948. She was in the last class of nursing cadets that were funded by the United States government. She served as a World War II nurse cadet.

After Luck left Waco, she moved to Andrews because her sister, Helen, lived there. At the time, the city had homes for nurses and teachers that were occupied by single women in those professions. Luck took care of the oil rig accident victims. Whenever a patient had a seizure or needed to be anesthetized, she would administer drops of ether through a mask while straddling an oxygen tank at the back of a hearse from the funeral home, which doubled as an ambulance. The patient was transported to a hospital in Abilene.

Luck worked in every facet of nursing, including hospital nursing, operating the Homemakers Upjohn for the West Texas region, and working for more than 35 years as a school nurse in Andrews and Midland. She served on hospital boards at Andrews County Hospital and the Permian Basin. She was president of the Lions Club and a member of the First Baptist Church. She married Douglas "Bob" Luck, and to that union, Cathy Sue was born in 1956. Luck maintained her nursing credentials until the age of 90 in 2020.

For more information about ways to support scholarships and students at South Plains College, contact the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, at (806) 716-2019.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Couple establishes scholarship as tribute to nurse’s career