By By LYDIA GRIMES Features writer
It is that time of the year when all nurses are honored for all of their hard work and dedication to an important profession.
One of those nurses is Dr. Angela Paul. Not only does she know her profession, but the Brewton resident also shares it with students who come through the nursing program at Ed Reid State Technical College in Evergreen.
She works with students and on the job training two days at week at D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital. The rest of her time is spent either on administrative duties or in the classroom in Evergreen.
While she is in the classroom she teaches the basics, and prepares students to take the state boards, which is called NCLEX.
A student has three semesters and three levels at Ed Reid. They can enter right out of high school and after completion of the three semesters can become a licensed practical nurse. Many of the students then enter a program to become registered nurses, with a good number transferring to Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton.
Paul was born in a town located in Laurens County called Dublin, Ga. She had one sister and they were reared by their grandmother from the time she was about five years old.
Paul graduated from Dublin High School in 1974. It was a college prep school and she said that all the students did well there and she was no exception.
She went into health and education instead and received her bachelor's degree in education in 1978 in Georgia. She taught school in Cordelle, Ga., for a while.
She met her future husband, Aaron Paul, through a mutual friend from Brewton who had been her roommate in school.
She quit her job in Georgia and moved to Brewton after her marriage. She did some substitute teaching but never got back into it full time. She became interested in nursing and talked with several people, including Norma Hammac, who was the director of the nursing program at the college. Many of her credits she had already earned would transfer to JDCC and it wouldn't take her very long to get her degree. She earned a degree from Jefferson Davis and then got her master's degree from the University of South Alabama in 1992. She began to work at Reid State in 1991 and continued to work during the time she was in school. She completed her doctorate in education in 2002 from the University of West Florida.
During the time she was getting her education, she was also working. She worked at Abernathy Hospital in Flomaton and at D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital.
In 1991 when she began working at Reid State, she was teaching a class which she called 'level one' which was the basic nursing training including making beds, taking blood pressures and cleaning.
It was while she was teaching the class that she earned her master's degree. She was then able to expand her teaching skills.
The two were later divorced, but they have one son, Aaron Paul III, who is a student at Alabama State University.
Paul said she loves to walk when she has the time and is spending time decorating her new house.