By JoAnn Biren
Murray County News Staffwriter
The Minnesota Nurses Association President Mary Turner was on hand for the party which honored Darlene Mechtenberg last week. The event was held at Murray County Medical Center where Mechtenberg has worked in the field of nursing since October 1989 when it was called Murray County Memorial Hospital. Turner gave a short speech, her voice breaking as she fought tears talking about Mechtenberg’s 50 years of nursing.
“I am honored to make the drive down here,” Turner stated. “Darlene is the epitome of what nurses are, what they are to their community.”
Darlene Block was born in Slayton in 1946 when the birth of a baby saw the mother and child staying in the hospital for 10 days and the total bill a whopping $120. She graduated from Slayton High School in 1964 and said with a laugh, “There were five careers for girls, teacher, nurse, secretary, beautician, and Mrs!” She chose to go the route of nurse and has never regretted her decision.
She started thinking about nursing before she graduated from high school. She was one of the first ‘juice girls’ at Murray County Memorial Hospital, a pet project of Jean Asplin, a long-time dietician at the hospital who wanted to give youth a chance to work in a hospital setting. “Today we would have been called candy stripers,” Mechtenberg said. “At that time there were so many patients they were sometimes in the hallways.”
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