Have you ever had a bloody nose, aching stomach, or a throbbing head at school before? If you have, especially with flu season right now, you probably have visited Nurse Baucus or Nurse Gray.

When students first enter, Nurse Baucus asks them what’s wrong. Often they complain about their heads, stomachs, or some part of their body that hurts.

Sometimes she’ll take temperatures. If they’re not average, students go home right away. If they’re not bad, students lie down for a good ten to 20 minutes, after that she gives them an ice pack and sends them to class.

On a slow normal day the nurses will see 20 to 30 students, but on a busy day it’s 40 to 50 students.

Besides treating patients, Nurse Baucus keeps busy.“When no kids come in I do paperwork, or if it’s a slow day I help the ladies in the office,” she said.  The most difficult part of her job is the large amount of paperwork she must complete.

Every time a student visits she has to fill out why and when they came in. She sends that to the government at the end of the year. She also keeps track of which students take medication, what they take, and when they take it.

She was responsible for collecting student physicals by October 15th. If she did not have one, the student had to leave school. Physicals are also needed to play sports.

Nurse Baucus has been a nurse for over 31 years and a school nurse for 12 of those years. She’s been at CS for a year and a half.

Ever since she was 4, Nurse Baucus dedicated her life to being a nurse. Despite her dreams, she faced plenty of obstacles along the way. She started out in high school taking various medical classes.  She went to Seton Hall University in New Jersey for college and then transferred to the Charles E. Gregory School of Nursing. She graduated with her nursing license from there. She became a nurse at the age of 24. She recently attended National Louis University in Wheeling and got her School Nurse Certification.

According to Nurse Baucus when her kids were younger, they went to Fremont School.  She used to volunteer there and they found out she was a nurse. The nurse at the school asked if she wanted to job share and she agreed.

“It worked out great because you get to go to school with your kids, come home with your kids, you have all the same days off, and you get to help a lot of other kids you know,” she said.

Nurse Baucus’  hobbies are sewing, gardening, and traveling. She’s been to Spain, Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Australia, Arizona, and South Carolina. She said she’d be a fashion designer if she wasn’t here at CS, but she enjoys what she does.

“Having a nurse helps a lot with the kid’s education,” she said. “[I] love to keep us healthy, happy, and in school.”