A legacy of nurses: Jody Argabright retires after 32 years at Gainesville School

Jody Argabright, who retired after working as a school nurse for 32 years, said she "really enjoyed" working with the students. "We had fun," she said. And also, she adds, "They taught me a lot."

A Kansas native, Jody has Licensed Practical Nurse credentials. "Actually, I say I have an LPN and a half," she said. "I tried to go back to school for my RN, but it took time away from my kids, and I didn't finish it."

A single mom of two school-age children during many of her work years, Jody became the nurse for both the high school and elementary school when she was hired in the 1993-94 school year. The elementary school was still in the building on what is now Elm Street, so driving back and forth was part of the job.   

 Because her salary as the school nurse in the 1990s didn't quite stretch far enough to provide for Jody and her kids, she also worked part-time at the Gainesville Health Care Center. "I would get off school and immediately drive to the nursing home and, basically, I was working the 3-to-11 shift. 

At other times during her years with the school district, she also drove a school bus and worked as family advocate at Gainesville Headstart. 

Jody learned hard work from her parents, Dal and Connie Argabright, while she was growing up on a traditional Kansas farm: "wheat, corn, cattle," she said. Her dad had an accident in 1979 that left him a paraplegic. "But he still farmed," she said. "He got out there on the tractors and the combines."

She credits her mother, who was also a school nurse, with caring for her father so that he could continue living an active life. She adds, "I come from nurses." Besides her mother, she also has a sister and an aunt who are nurses. And she has two brothers, one who took over the family farm and stockyard, and another who currently serves in the Kansas State Senate. 

After the Gainesville Elementary School moved into the new building at its present location, the district hired a second school nurse. Jody opted to stay at the elementary school instead of moving to the high school because her children were still in the grade school. Even after her son and daughter moved on to the upper grades, she stayed at the elementary school. "I just like the little ones," she said. 

She treasures the one-on-one times she had with the youngest students. "Sometimes they would come in and tell me things that made me cry," she said. "Other times they would come and tell me something I would giggle about all day."

Some might say Jody herself is a kid at heart. She loved dressing up in silly costumes for Halloween to entertain her students and bus riders.

Jody's favorite thing about her job was how Gainesville faculty and staff members supported her through a difficult battle with breast cancer in 1995, when she was 35, and also in 2020, when the cancer came back. 

"I was just really fortunate to work with some pretty incredible people," she said.