Celebrating Nurses 2009 : Lenora D. Clapp
Celebrating Nurses 2009 : Lenora D. Clapp
In Corrections, 'you receive what you give'
Special Sections Writer
Lenora Clapp has seen it all in more than 40 years of nursing, and going to work in a prison never frightened her.
"No, I never have been apprehensive in the Corrections," Clapp said. "When I started I went with the idea of knowing that they are inmates, but they are patients as well. I've learned that with inmates, for the most part, you receive what you give. If you are respectful to them and treat them courteously and politely, they're pretty much the same way."
Clapp, 63, lives in her native Greensboro and works as a nurse supervisor at Randolph Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison for men near Asheboro. She has worked for the state prison system more than 30 years, beginning with part-time evening work at the Sandy Ridge Correctional Center near High Point, which closed in 1999. A former classmate from nursing school convinced her to give it a shot.
"I said, 'I will try — I will go out and talk to the superintendent and see if it's something I'm interested in,'" Clapp said.
Her daughter, Felicia Donnell-Self, nominated her as an exemplary nurse.
"I want to nominate Nurse Clapp as an extraordinary nurse because I can remember her struggles and tight schedules that she juggled as a single parent, working two jobs, continuing her education and never neglecting her motherly duties at home," Donnell-Self wrote.
Clapp got on the path to nursing nearly 50 years ago.
"My nursing profession started in (1960)," she said. "I started out in the vocational LPN program in high school. .... we had classroom activities, and we would have to go to the hospital to do the clinical portion."
Her career began with work as a licensed practical nurse in a maternity ward.
"I started as a labor-and-delivery room nurse at a hospital in Greensboro — L. Richardson Memorial Hospital, which served different levels of socioeconomic status patients, whether they were able to pay or not able to pay," Clapp said. She eventually earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from N.C. A&T, and worked as a nurse at the A&T infirmary before making the transition to prison work. Pay for nurses has come a long way toward catching up with the work's intangible rewards over the years, she said.
"When you chose nursing back then, it was because it was a passion for you, or a calling, if you will," Clapp said. "Certainly not for the pay. And, of course, the scheduling — if you got one weekend off a month you were doing good. Holidays were few and far between. But you knew what your responsibilities were, and you did 'em."
- Debra Allen , Rockingham Co. Health Dept
- Diane Bell, Randolph Cancer Center
- Thomas Brown, Randolph Hospital
- Leslie Butcher, Brenner's Children's Hospital
- Lenora D. Clapp, NC Dept of Corrections
- Cynthia E. Knust, Moses Cone Health Systems
- Marsha Roddenberry, High Point Regional
- Marsha Long, Carolina Medical Center
- Jan Parker, Hospice of Greensboro
- Sarah Turner, Kids Path/Hospice
