Honoring frontline workers

CLOVIS - Cold night. Warm hearts.

In a parallel to the way COVID-19 has upended everyday life, Thursday's bout of nasty weather created a less than ideal night for an outdoor ceremony at Plains Regional Medical Center.

But thanks to a few program alterations, and the PRMC employees' willingness to spend a few 25-degree minutes outside, a community parade was held to honor all those employees have done through nearly a year of the pandemic.

The Clovis/Curry County Chamber of Commerce organized the Hearts for Healthcare Workers event. The festivities included a vehicle parade that went clockwise through the PRMC campus, followed by a program with various community and hospital leaders speaking words of gratitude.

Additionally, chamber members put together gift card collections for each employee and the Chamber Ambassadors delivered more than 5,000 assorted cookies in goodie bags they took parts of three days to pack.

Speakers, originally scheduled to be right in front of the main entrance, instead moved the podium to the outside of the foyer as community members and workers who hadn't gone back to their regular work stations packed the foyer.

The event featured music broadcast by BIG 101.5 FM in the hour leading up to the parade.

"Anybody like the (Rolling) Stones?" Chamber Past President Greg Southard quipped. "Ironically, the last time I was here it was for stones."

Speakers one and all thanked the PRMC employees for all of their work during the pandemic and how they repeatedly put their lives on the line to help COVID and non-COVID patients.

"This is what it means to be a courageous superhero," Chamber President Laura Leal said. "You have shown us how to love a community."

The chamber thought so much of the employees that it gave its 2020 Heart Award, normally a staple of the chamber banquet, to the PRMC staff and presented the standard guitar trophy to Interim Administrator Jorge Cruz.

Mayor Mike Morris, officially there to read and present a proclamation, couldn't help but notice the number of employees navigating the crowds because their shifts were starting.

"Your work goes on and on," Morris said, "and we say thank you."

Cruz said the staff shed blood, sweat and tears every day, and the only thing he didn't see out of them was quitting.

"My wife and I moved here 20 years ago," Cruz said. "Obviously, it's the best decision we have ever made. And you validated that for me."

Cruz reminded the audience the community was in no way out of the pandemic, as other COVID-19 strains gain steam, but said the hospital and the community will be better equipped to fight it with the year of knowledge they've gained.