Albany Tech awards 11 students nursing pins in evening ceremony

ALBANY — Albany Technical College’s Nursing program held a pinning ceremony for its 2018 senior class on Tuesday evening at the Albany Civic Center.

Eleven new nurses were pinned: Sharon Bradshaw, Carey Collins, Taylor Darrow, Kim Davis, Tequilla Hudson, Donecia Ingram, Haley Koebel, Deloris Nixon, Konosha Smith, Leigh Williamson and Ruby Zackery.

“Tonight means everything to me,” Smith said. “I’ve dreamed of this day for years, and I am finally getting to live out that dream. I am also happy that through all the late nights of studying and many early mornings at school, in the end have finally been rewarded.”

So where does Smith go from here?

“I think I’m going to go straight to my MSN; I have the classes to do it,” Smith, who was accompanied by her grandmother, Rosa Smith, and her father, Kono Smith, said.

Kim Davis of Leesburg took a longer trip that most to earn the distinction.

“I’ve been dreaming of this day since I was 19 years old, and I just had my 47th birthday, but life and children came along and delayed those plans,” Davis said as she paused to bend down and kiss her granddaughter, Sophia. “I’ve been working at Albany Neurology while I was in school, and they just offered me a permanent position. What I am most looking forward to is not worrying about the future and late-night studying. When I wasn’t at work, I was studying.

“It will be nice to return to a sense of normalcy.”

Davis later was presented Dorothy B. Gardner Award for Academic Achievement, while Ingram received the Mattie Buchannon Clinical Skills Award.

According to hcpro.com, the pinning ceremony is a time-honored nursing school tradition. Often more personally meaningful than the graduation ceremony, it signifies the official initiation into the brotherhood and sisterhood of nurses. The ceremony is rich with symbolism. The history of the right of passage can be traced all the way back to the Crusades of the 12th century.

The modern ceremony dates back to the 1860s, when Florence Nightingale was awarded the Red Cross of St. George in recognition of her tireless service to the injured during the Crimean War. To share the honor, she in turn presented a medal of excellence to her brightest graduates. By 1916, the practice of pinning new graduates was standard throughout the U.S.

The keynote speaker for the Albany Tech ceremony was Bianca Kierce, a published author, clinical researcher, speaker, and educator with more than 10 years of nursing experience. Currently, Kierce practices at Phoebe Cardiology as a nurse practitioner with dual inpatient and outpatient responsibilities. She also serves as an adjunct didactic and clinical faculty member in the ASN program at Albany Tech.

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