The Jones County News
Sherry Bryant lived in many different cities while growing up and worked at numerous jobs before settling in, but the nurse manager for the Jones County Health Department has called Forsyth home for 35 years and worked in public health for 30.
Bryant, who just turned 60, has been at the local health agency since 2011, and she will be retiring in two weeks after having worked half of her life in public health.
Bryant moved around a lot in her early years. Her father was in the Army, and the family lived in such locales as Frankfurt, Germany, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Georgia.
“I’ve lived in Columbus, Savannah, Tybee Island, Hawkinsville, Forsyth, Macon,” she said last week.
“My daddy went to Vietnam when I was four or five. He was gone for a year and a half, two years. He was a pilot in Vietnam. A 1% chance of coming home. But, he did.”
Bryant’s family continued to move, however.
“Daddy went to work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and we moved to several places from that job too. Then daddy decided he didn’t want to move anymore. So we moved to Hawkinsville, which is in the area where my mother was born. We moved there when I was 15.”
Bryant was living with her grandmother in Hawkinsville when she was caught skipping school and, rather than worsening that situation, moved in with her parents in Macon, graduating from Central High in 1984. She had trouble focusing on her scholastic careers, however.
“I went to college at Middle Georgia College in Cochran and then the tech school in Warner Robins. I ended up dropping out of both of those programs and just working at jobs that I knew wasn’t going to go anywhere.”
Bryant was working for a company in Perry when she finally decided she wanted to be a nurse and changed jobs to earn money. She became a peanut inspector.
“You went to different towns, and you would literally inspect the peanuts when they come in in the big trucks,” she explained. “I did that for that Fall because you make a lot of money. You work a lot of hours, but you make a lot. So that January, ‘87, I started at Middle Georgia College again.”
She took her core classes then moved to Macon to begin nursing school at Macon State College.
“I failed my first quarter,” she admitted, “and it was rather devastating because I thought my life was over. I just never had a lot of encouragement, but I was working three jobs and going to school, and it was hard.”
The aspiring nurse didn’t quit. She returned to school, got married, and worked only one job.
“I did well. I worked hard and studied hard,” she commented before explaining her outlook on life. “When I got into nursing school, it was so hard. I look back, and I’m thinking, you know, God had a huge plan for me. He had a big plan for me, and He was going to make sure I did it because I couldn’t have done it without Him.”
Bryant graduated in ‘92 and went to work at Middle Georgia Hospital in Macon. She chose an option that provided a better benefit financially.
“I worked night shift because you made more money. And they gave me a $4,000 bonus just to go to work there.”
The young nurse didn’t stay there long, however, leaving after just nine months to work with Sylvan Grove Hospital in Jackson. She remained there four years until a position in public health came open at the Butts County Health Department in 1995.
“I applied, and I interviewed” Bryant said. “They called me and offered me a job, and I did some heavyduty praying about this. I was outside my house walking on the driveway, and they had told me what the money was. It was like a $12,000 cut, and I was like, ‘God. What do I do?’
“This is one of those times He spoke to me,” she shared. “He said, ‘You asked for the job, not the money.’ I took the job, and I worked there for 10 years from 1995 to 2005.”
Bryant worked at the Crawford County Health Department for close to two years before moving to the district office in Macon as the immunization coordinator.
“I worked there for two years. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.”
Bryant left the district office to take a position at Jones County’s health department.
“I’ve been the nurse manager since 2011,” she stated. “You have to manage people. You have to do, I guess, what you call management work, emails, getting ready for, like right now, the school-based flu clinic. It takes a lot of work to go into the schools and do those vaccinations.
“That’s what I’ve been doing, getting all this stuff ready. Doing that, seeing patients. I mean, I don’t sit in here as a manager. I’d rather be seeing patients, to be honest. So I see patients. I don’t ask anybody to do anything I wouldn’t do.
“If I have to work the front office, I work the front office,” Bryant went on. “I do home visits for flu. I actually have three patients that have already called. ‘When are you coming?’ One of them I’ve only been seeing since last year, and the other two I’ve been seeing I don’t even know how many years.”
Bryant said she has a good staff, and she supports them to the best of her ability.
“I have this motto, ‘How can I help?’ So, I want to make sure everybody has what they need to succeed in what they’re doing. We have a really good health department here. We have, I would say, amazing employees, great people to work with, great teamwork.
“I believe in teamwork. I believe in everybody’s voice matters because I have my weaknesses as a leader,” she pointed out. “I don’t like confrontation. Never have. It’s a very difficult struggle for me, but I like building people up. I like to see people succeed, and I’ll do whatever I can to help them succeed.”
The nurse manager also believes that the past should be studied. She said it is what built the present agency.
“I like history. I think it’s important that people not be forgotten because they created the legacy, the way things operate. And things have changed in public health tremendously from when it started here in 1937.
“Back in the old health apartment,” she outlined, “it was a room, probably not quite big as this (her office), but the whole wall was file cabinets full of charts. I’m the one that went through them, and I’m the one that wanted to go through them. It was truly amazing. I found so much in these charts, letters, pictures.
“We have the Board of Health minutes from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. Very interesting, you know, talking about the budget for the year is $4,000. I’m just like, oh wow.”
Bryant said she found one picture of a mother holding her triplets, two boys and a girl.
“I found the lady. I told her, ‘I have something that I think you would want.’ She came up here, and I gave her the picture. I told her, ‘I just thought you’d want to have this.’ She says, ‘I’ve never seen that picture before.’ I don’t know; stuff like that just makes you feel like you’ve done something really good.”
The soon-to-be retiree can relate to some of her clientele. She has health problems of her own. She has had an MRI on her back and hopes to have surgery soon.
“I mean, it hurts to walk,” she lamented. “My back is a train wreck, and I guess it’s bulging out, sitting on the sciatic nerve.”
Bryant said she would be very happy to hear from her doctor now.
“If he called me today and said ‘I saw your MRI and it was terrible; I know you’re hurting real bad; let’s get you in next week’, I’d be there.” As it is, she noted, it will be October before she sees her doctor again.
One key reason Bryant is anxious to be able to walk and move around comfortably is her family. She has a daughter, Morgan, and son, Preston.
“Morgan shares my birthday, Aug. 31. I started public health Sept. 1 (1995), and she turned one that year, so she’s 31 now. “She has three beautiful stepdaughters — Avery, Kara, and Sumner — and she has an adorable little almost two-year-old (Remi) that I absolutely am in love with.
“Preston is 28. He’s been married since he was 20, and he has a precious, sweet little boy (Tripp) that I’m in love with who’s two years old.”
The grandmother said both mothers are pregnant again, each with a girl.
“Remi and Tripp are four months apart, and the girls will be six months apart. My life, post-retirement, I want to be able to spend time; I want to be that grandma.”
Bryant plans to do volunteer work at the Missions, a homeless shelter in Macon.
“And I told Morgan I’m going to start going to Bible Study with her when I retire. Also, I want to travel, and I want to hang out with my brother.
“My family is the most important thing. Other than God,” she hastened to add. “He comes first. My motto is ‘God, family, job.’ That’s the way it goes.”
