Promptings and Invitations Drew Her to BYU
Mary Williams’s love for BYU and its students grew from her experiences as a student, professor, and administrator in the College of Nursing.
December 2022
As a freshman at BYU, recent nursing graduate Shawen Bueckers registered to be a bone marrow donor. Two years later the Spokane, Washington, native got an unexpected call that she was a match for a one-year-old girl from Alaska who was suffering with leukemia.
When it came time for the transplant procedure, Bueckers was gearing up for the rigors of her senior year in the nursing program. “Regardless of my studies, donating was something I wanted to do,” she says, adding that she’s glad she did. The transplant was a success, and the now two-year-old girl’s cancer is in remission.
Bueckers says, “I have a deep desire to embrace how better to comfort those in need of comfort and how to help heal the body, mind, and spirit of those who are sick.”
“Regardless of my studies, donating was something I wanted to do.”
Donations of another kind have blessed Bueckers during her time at BYU. At a particularly busy point in her college career, she received a scholarship. “Those who give to the College of Nursing are not just supporting the college—they are providing a gift that changes a student’s life,” she says. “They are helping future nurses succeed.”
Mary Williams’s love for BYU and its students grew from her experiences as a student, professor, and administrator in the College of Nursing.
June Leifson says that her career goal of becoming a nurse was the result of more than a score of operations that introduced her to the field of medicine in a personal way.
Camie Mendon’s father operated a plant nursery near Paradise, California, a town that, in practical terms, no longer exists. The business was destroyed - along with most of the town - in the devastating Camp Fire of 2018.