‘It left a lasting impact on our family’: Central IL woman urges more Nurse Honor Guard volunteers

URBANA, Ill. (WCIA) — When a nurse passes away after a career of serving his or her patients, the care doesn’t stop. The Nurse Honor Guard program aims to remember them even at the end of their lives.

Phyllis Rogers called Carle Hospital in Urbana her office for many years. She started in family medicine and eventually switched to a management role. But Ali Boatright, her daughter, said her stethoscope was always close by.

“Up until retirement, she was still helping out, jumping on the floor, doing flu clinics, she was also a parish nurse at her church,” Boatright said.

Boatright always looked up to her mom in the medical field.

“It was such a big part of her. She was just such a natural caregiver,” Boatright said.

Rogers died in 2019 after her battle with an aggressive brain cancer. Nurses were by her side until the very end, remembering her with an Honor Guard ceremony at her funeral. It’s a 10-minute program that can be performed at any fallen nurse’s funeral.

“We just want to honor those who have worked so hard,” Carol Schank, a Carle hospice nurse, said. “Every family has told me that the Nurse Honor Guard portion was the most impactful part of the funeral.”

The program has been around for seven years, changing lives across Central Illinois and the entire country.

“It was just really special,” Boatright reflected. “It’s something that if my mother been still here and survived, she absolutely would’ve wanted to be part of.”

Schank knows they need more people to keep making it a success. Any nurse can volunteer, whether you work at Carle or not.

“To have them show up for her and to honor her, it really just left a lasting impact on our family,” Boatright said. “We were mourning her, but to see them pay their respects, it just meant that much more. I think other families would feel the same way.”

Some nurses have traveled anywhere from 40-60 minutes to honor another nurse, sometimes they don’t even know the person.

Anyone interested in volunteering can email volunteer.services@carle.com or call 217-383-3024.

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