ELKINS, W.Va. — Long-time Elkins Rehabilitation & Care Center employee Kelly Channell has retired after working at the facility for over a decade.
Channell joined the ERCC team 11 years ago when she was hired as the Director of Staff Development and Infection Preventionist. She has served in those roles since she began at ERCC.
“We are sorry to see her go,” Administrator Tara Shaver said. “But we’re happy that Kelly is going to move on to this next chapter in her life.”
“She has made a positive impact on all of us and we will miss her smiling face,” Shaver added.
Channell said she has enjoyed the last 11 years working at ERCC and that she has made relationships with the staff that will go on well past her last day.
“It’s just a great group of people to work with here,” Channell said. “I’m going to miss them all.”
Channell, a 1979 graduate of Tygarts Valley High School, has been a nurse for 46 years, having obtained her LPN license in 1980 and her RN license in 1983. She is a graduate of Davis & Elkins College with an Associate of Science Degree in Nursing.
In her over four decades as a nurse, she has worked with elderly patients as well as children and has served in the home health fields as well as with hospice care and in hospital settings.
“I’ve really enjoyed my time as a nurse and my time here at ERCC,” Channell said. “It’s been challenging but rewarding.”
One of the most rewarding aspects, she said, of her job was when a CNA from her class went on to become an LPN or even an RN. Several have done this during her tenure as an instructor.
“We have really good support here,” she added.
Channell is a lifelong fan of cooking, and she wants to take some time after retirement to learn how to make pasta. Along these lines, ERCC purchased her a new pasta maker from Italy as one of her retirement gifts.
Following retirement, Channell plans to enjoy time with her family and to attend the Mountain State Forest Festival with loved ones. She has three grown children and five grandchildren aged 5 years to 18 years.
She would also like to travel and pointed to destinations such as Italy, especially Tuscany and Florence, as well as Ireland and Scotland as places she would like to visit.
She also received a handmade wooden heart plaque to commemorate 11 years of service, three Italian cookbooks, three cooking class gift certificates, and a cash bonus, all in grateful appreciation for her 11 years of dedicated service.
ERCC is a 111-bed, non-profit, short and long-term skilled and intermediate care and rehabilitation facility located in Elkins, W.Va. A wide range of care and rehabilitation services is provided at the facility by more than 160 full-time and part-time employees. For more information: http://www.ercc.biz.
