“I was raised to be honest with people and treat them fairly, give them a good product and a good price, and stand behind it.”

“I started reading every book, every magazine, going to wedding events—I just tried to learn as much as I could.”

“My college advisor asked, ‘Do you want to go into social work?’ I said, ‘Well, no. My second choice would be teaching. I would then be able to help my students,” she says.

“We received an overflow of cards, calls, and money to help. Our entire community rallied around us.”

“I immediately began to remove certain types of food from my diet, like processed foods and sugar, and began to incorporate more anti-inflammatory, whole foods. Within a few weeks’ time, it was like a miracle had happened in my body.”

If there is a hot spot, a problem, come to me—I'll figure it out. I have three girls that I work with closely; I feel like they're my daughters. There's not much going on in the bank that we don't touch.”

“I asked for a camera for Christmas, so I could take pictures of my baby. Photography wasn’t a passion at first; it was a way to save money on pictures. Now I couldn’t imagine my life without photography.”

“I’ve been a waitress in this town since I was 14. I’ve been pouring their coffee and bringing them biscuits since I was a child.”

“When I first came out with my “God Over All” shirt, I received so much support and people were so excited to wear the shirt. It meant so much to me that word was getting out that truly "God is over" all things and is here to help us through all of the problems, troubles, circumstances and difficulties of life.

“Our customers are our friends. When you work for a small community bank, you see these people at the grocery store, at school functions—you see them everywhere you go.”

“I get so much joy out of making each patient feel better. I have had patients become tearful in the chair because they are getting to smile in pictures, and they haven’t smiled in years.”

Her journey into the medical field began while working as a transporter, wheeling patients from their beds to anywhere in Walker Baptist Hospital. “A light bulb went off around 1992, and I decided I wanted to be a nurse,” Mauldin says.

“I love those moments of bonding in women’s health, like in the first moments of a mom meeting her baby for the first time, seeing a baby breathe for the first time, or being there to comfort moms when something is wrong.”

“Every day is different, every patient is at a different stage in recovery so there is no monotony. Almost always I’m seeing patients at one of their most vulnerable times and I have to earn their trust.”

“I didn’t even know speech pathology was a thing. But when I observed the therapist help the patient to find his voice and communicate, I knew I wanted to be a part of that blessing—helping others.”

“Few people can walk in these doors and in five years be able to do it. I'm still trying to get to the point where I can do what he can do,” Bryan says. “You need mechanical and artistic ability. You need the eye to do it.”

“Really and truly my story is the people I serve,” says Sandy. “I feel like I am an accumulation of all the wonderful people I have served, the people I work beside, and the families I’ve come to know. They have made me who I am today.”

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate working with middle-aged people, older people, and children. Maybe it’s because I can relate with the middle-aged man who hurt his back cutting the lawn or strained his shoulder playing basketball with his kids.”

“In a given day, I might perform a minimally-invasive endoscopic stone procedure, a laparoscopic-assisted robot procedure, and an open-cancer operation.”

“…Walker Baptist is open 24/7, so my days don’t necessarily end when I leave for the day. If there’s an issue in the night at the hospital, we pick up the phone and help each other.”