A celebration of life will be held Saturday at 2:00 at Clarkesville's First Presbyterian Church for Evelyn Waugh whose name is synonymous with the nursing profession in Gainesville.
Waugh died of natural causes July 25 at her home in Clarkesville at the age of 88.
Waugh became a Registered Nurse in 1953. During her five-decade professional career, she became a recognized leader in the movement to advance patient-centered care and to modernize nursing education, according to her obituary.
In 1969, she was named director of the Hall School of Nursing, a diploma program on the brink of closing. During the next six years, she implemented curriculum changes that led to the school's national accreditation, increased enrollment from 35 students to 175, and raised the school’s standing on state board exams from second lowest in the state to first place in 1974. Under her leadership, the school admitted the first African American and first male nursing students in the state. She later led the successful integration of the program into the Baccalaureate Nursing Program at Brenau College (now Brenau University.)
Waugh spent the next two decades at Northeast Georgia Medical, retiring as the Vice President of Nursing in 1990. After moving to Clarkesville, she served as the Vice President of Habersham County Medical Center for four years.
(To read the full obituary, go to the AccessWDUN Obituaries page.)
