Local nurse honored for work in public health
Angela Roberson knew something was up when she walked into the Council Chamber in City Hall on Aug. 19.
Roberson, a registered nurse at Medical Center of South Arkansas, had been invited to speak to the El Dorado City Council about the volunteer work she is doing to help raise awareness and educate the community about the coronavirus (COVID-19) and the vaccine. Or, so she thought.
Upon entering the Council Chamber, Roberson saw that the audience was filled with family members, friends, co-workers and sisters from Delta Sigma Theta Sorority (Roberson is president of the Magnolia Alumnae Chapter).
Her suspicions were further confirmed when, shortly after the meeting was called to order, Mayor Veronica Smith-Creer called Roberson to the lectern and asked for an update on COVID-19 vaccinations in the city.
Roberson soon learned that she was there not only to discuss her community service, but also to be honored for it.
“She does not know but Angela is kind of here for another reason,” Smith-Creer announced as Roberson approached the front of the Council Chamber.
The mayor said Roberson had reached out to her “some time ago” and asked how Roberson could honor local ministers with whom she had worked to “get people vaccinated in their communities.”
“She wanted to honor them and I think that is so selfless of her because any of you who know Mrs. Roberson, she has been very much behind all the vaccinations that have been going on, not only in the area churches but in other places as well,” Smith-Creer said, adding, “She has been a true advocate in getting people vaccinated.”
After Smith-Creer read biographical information about Roberson that had been shared by MCSA, Roberson was presented with flowers and a Key to the City — all against the backdrop of a standing ovation.
Roberson said she was overwhelmed by the surprise and the attention, which came after a couple of days
“I was very shocked but I was humbled as well. I’m very blessed to be honored by a community that has blessed me and been super wonderful to me and my family,” she said. off from work and volunteering.
‘Passion for helping’
Being of service to others is a mantra by which the Dallas native naturally comports herself, personally and professionally.
“I have always had a passion for helping. That’s just how I was raised, helping people,” Roberson said.
She fostered a childhood desire to become a nurse by attending The School of Health Professions, a public magnet high school in Dallas, where she graduated in 1988.
Roberson’s aspirations of entering the nursing profession somewhat cooled after she enrolled in college and she took another route toward the health care profession.
Though she made good grades, Roberson admitted that the course curriculum she chose was not quite
as challenging as nursing.
“I wanted to be a nurse but when I went to college 30-something years ago, I just did what was easy. I took easy stuff so I could get out,” she acknowledged.
In 1992, she earned a bachelor’s degree in health studies/community health from Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, and two years later, she received a Master of Public Health Education from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Roberson’s career trajectory would make a 180-degree turn several years after meeting her husband, Andrew Roberson.
The pair connected in 1997 while Andrew was visiting mutual friends in Dallas.
Following a whirlwind romance, the couple married a year later and Roberson moved to El Dorado, Andrew’s hometown.
It did not take long for her to immerse herself in the community.
Roberson eagerly looked for ways in which she could use her passion for helping others, educational background and experience to work and volunteer for services that promote community health.
Shortly after relocating to El Dorado, Roberson joined New Bethel Baptist Church and started a nonprofit organization called Healing Hands.
The organization didn’t last very long but it helped Roberson get her feet wet in identifying the needs of the community and finding ways to meet those needs.
She later landed a job at the YWCA — now HealthWorks Fitness Center — with a program called Moms and Mentors.
“I worked with pregnant teenagers and young girls who were not pregnant but who were at risk of getting pregnant and I did that for four or five years,” she explained.
During Roberson’s tenure with program, the YWCA and the SHARE Foundation partnered together and undertook a multi-million-dollar renovation and expansion project to open HealthWorks Fitness Center in 2004.
The Moms and Mentors program underwent its own transition and was moved to what eventually became the Hannah Pregnancy Resource Center.
Roberson stayed with the program for another year before taking a job with the Boys and Girls Club of El Dorado, where she oversaw another program that was geared toward mentoring teens and teaching them life lessons.
Not long after, she helped to launch one of the most unique and beloved nonprofit organizations in Union County.
Roberson is one of the founding members of Hope Landing, whose mission “is to bring hope and purpose to the lives of children with disabilities by helping them achieve their God-given potential.”
Her reasons for helping to spearhead the project were close to her heart.
“I had my last child, my daughter Zoe, in 2001. She had contracted viral meningitis. She had brain damage, she was non-verbal and there were no (local) resources for her,” Roberson recalled.
“I’m no longer on the board (of Hope Landing) or anything but I do whatever they need me to do,” she explained.
Having a child with special needs prompted Roberson to hit the refresh button and circle back to her “first love” and choice of career.
A return to nursing
Roberson returned to school for nursing at 39 years old, starting at South Arkansas Community College (SouthArk), where she obtained a technical certificate for her LPN license in 2009.
She joined the MCSA team as an LPN in 2012 before heading off to Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia in 2013 and successfully completing the school’s RN program.
A second associate’s degree in nursing and another bachelor’s degree, this time a BSN, followed from SouthArk in 2013 and SAU in 2014, respectively.
At the age of 44, a personal health crisis shifted Roberson’s focus toward raising awareness about a disease that affects millions of people, mainly women, around the world.
Roberson was 15 when doctors discovered benign lumps in her breasts.
With help and support from her mother, who worked at a cancer treatment hospital in Dallas, the teen underwent surgery to have the lumps removed, one from each breast.
“The doctor I had — he was a young doctor — told me that, ‘When you get 35, you need to start getting mammograms. It’s going to be hard and you’re going to have to fight because some people are going to say you shouldn’t get them until you get to 40 because it could put you at risk because of the radiation,’” Roberson recounted.
“But I guess my (breast) tissues were such that he felt that I should get them monitored at an early age,” she continued.
Roberson followed doctor’s orders — due diligence that she credits with saving her life.
In 2014, she was diagnosed with breast cancer but according to the results of her mammogram at the time, her status rested at Stage 0 and has not changed.
“I had a double mastectomy and I did not have to have any radiation, (chemotherapy) or any follow-up medicine,” Roberson shared. “That was in 2014 and I haven’t had any issues.”
Emotional and practical reinforcement from her family, friends and community helped Roberson through her diagnosis, surgery and recovery, she said.
Then newly-formed, a local nonprofit organization also stepped in to offer assistance, making Roberson the first recipient of a grant from the #teamcorrie Cancer Foundation.
The foundation was established in 2013 in honor of Corrie Gross-Bechtleheimer, who had been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer the previous year.
Bechtelheimer’s friends and family had sprung into action to host a fundraiser, Paint the Town Pink, to help with expenses for her treatments.
Bechtelheimer expressed a desire to offer financial support to other “cancer warriors” and their families in Union County, her family members have said.
The #teamcorrie Cancer Foundation has awarded dozens of one-time grants of up to $1,000 to area cancer patients who are actively undergoing treatment.
Bechtelheimer lost her twoyear battle with breast cancer in June of 2014. She was 35.
Roberson said Bechtelheimer’s determination to help “cancer warriors” in the midst of her own cancer fight was awe-inspiring.
As a direct beneficiary of such a willingness to help others, Roberson is making sure to keep passing it on.
New beginning
Roberson underwent a double mastectomy on Nov. 19, 2014 — her 45th birthday.
Following the surgery, advice and encouraging words from a friend provided her with some perspective.
“My friend told me to think of it as a new beginning. I was sad but when I thought about it, I said, ‘You sure are right,’” said Roberson.
When COVID-19 began to spread in El Dorado and Union County in the first quarter of 2020, Roberson got an up-close look at its effects and she grew alarmed about the misinformation that was also spreading about the virus.
“I care for my community and for everybody’s well-being and health and I want to make sure that I am giving them factual information,” she said.
She knew she had to go beyond the walls of MCSA in order to make sure area residents were armed with the details they needed about the ever-changing dynamics of the public health crisis.
Roberson joined other local health care professionals, including fellow nurses and pharmacists, to begin administering the COVID-19 vaccines in a drive-up service on the MCSA campus. With the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as a partner early on, Roberson said she knew that more needed to be done to reach under-served communities.
“So, we started partnering with churches, community leaders, liquor stores, going to places no one was going to and giving the vaccine and information,” she said, adding, “It’s all about making sure that we have health equality and health equity with everybody.”
Vaccination clinics have been held at local churches, public events and businesses.
Pfizer vaccine clinics were held last week at Douglas Chapel Missionary Baptist Church on Smackover Highway and Buck’s Liquor on the corner of Hawthorne and E&B.
Two more clinics are scheduled for this week, one from noon until 2 p.m. Wednesday at Strong High School and the other, from 9 a.m. until noon and 2 until 5 p.m. Friday at Clean Harbors.
The clinics are free and open to the public.
Roberson said that though she has received some pushback from people who are skeptical of COVID-19 statistics and vaccines, she strives to be a voice the community can trust. “I know we don’t trust everybody. I know I don’t trust anybody with my information I know there are a lot of politics involved with the vaccine and I think that’s really sad,” Roberson said pensively.
Still, she will not be deterred from helping people.
While speaking to the El Dorado City Council on Aug 19, Roberson announced that she had come bearing COVID vaccines for anyone who wanted to participate.
There was one taker — a News-Times reporter who stayed after the meeting for her first-ever COVID vaccine, Pfizer.
With a gentle hand, Roberson deftly administered the vaccine in the Council Chamber, while patiently describing the process. She left no question unanswered.
Roberson assured the vaccine recipient that it was “no bother,” demonstrating why she was so deserving of the honor she had received earlier in the evening.
For more information, call Roberson at 870-863-2047.