Richard Henderson:
CLASS OF 1983
Madras High SchoolClass of 1983
Madras, OR
University of Phoenix - NursingClass of 2012
Phoenix, AZ
Excelsior College - NursingClass of 1997
Albany, NY
Richard's Story
I am currently a Registered Nurse for the Veterans Health Administration within the Department of Veterans Affairs at the Sioux Falls VA Health Care System. I am the Nurse Manager at the Watertown Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) and Wagner community Based Outreach Clinic. I've been in my position for almost nine years now and over 23 total years with VA. Even though the organization has received some negative publicity over the past few years I still believe that we provide the veterans with outstanding health care given the fact that Congress often establishes roadblocks that prevent us from delivering care in a timely fashion.
I completed my Masters of Science in Nursing/Informatics Degree in January 2012 and am now an Informatics Nurse Specialist. I am currently studying for two national certification examinations in Nursing Informatics and Nurse Executive.
My life partner and I recently got married on our 25th Anniversary December 26th. We have a teenage son Alex whom we adopted in 2011 and 2012 since we had to do primary and second parent adoptions it took longer. We are now beginning the process of adopting up to three more kids. We moved from Baltimore to Frederick Maryland just prior to Alex's placement into our home. Alex is a junior in high school attending classes at Frederick High School. He is in his third year of attending mainstream classes in school and is doing much better than any of his previous counselors thought he would. I think Alex is far more capable of doing things, but he would prefer to take the easier road to get from point A to point B and not to be challenged along the way.
Our family grew by one in 2013 when Andrew was forced to leave his home after some intense family issues. Andrew is Alex's best friend and actually spent a great deal of time at our home so the decision on our part was very easy and that was to take him in and offer him a safe place to live. Andrew moved in with us just prior to Thanksgiving. He was a senior the same as Alex so now we had double the senior expenses to contend with for pictures, gra...Expand for more
duation, and so forth. It was fun and rewarding to be able to help someone turn his life around the way we helped Andrew. He was missing so much school prior to that transition that he wasn't going to graduate if he didn't change. We established rules and expectations for him that were reasonable and attainable at the same time. Both boys graduated in 2014 and Andrew has been in the US Navy since July 2014 on board the USS Roosevelt.
In 2014 our family went through a very difficult time with a failed adoption of a young boy from Ohio. It was six months of hell for Russ, Alex, Andrew, and myself to the point that it was destabilizing our relationship. The young boy was 12 and had some very deep seated emotional issues that weren't disclosed until they appeared to us and his school. We had tried everything to reach out to this child and nothing seemed to work. Finally after two intense months of psychiatric hospitalization and input from a host of doctors, therapists, and social workers it was deemed to be in the best interest of the child and our family to disrupt the placement.
We have two pets here with us. He is a Blue and Gold Macaw that is 8 years old his name is Harry. We have had him since October 2008 and have greatly enjoyed his company. We also have a 3.5 year old Sable German Shepherd named Chico that is just a blast to be around.
After the failed adoption Russ and I took some time to evaluate our lives and consider where we were heading in the next 10 years. We decided to make the move to South Dakota to be closer to family and work on plans for retirement. Russ can retire in about 8 years and I can in about 10. Life is not winding down for us but rather we are preparing for the next chapter in our lives.
We enjoy traveling and seeing the sights and plan on exploring all that South Dakota and the Black Hills has to offer.
A lot has happened since my school years in Madras. It is hard to believe that it has been over 30 years since graduation. It would be nice to turn the clock back and go through it all again. Time flies by so fast these days.
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