Missy Overholt and Kate Kuester could have become friends — years ago —when they worked at Providence Medical Center in Wayne.
Overholt was a dishwasher and Kuester worked in the housekeeping department. They were high school teenagers who knew many of the same people.
But their lives didn’t intersect until they began working at Methodist Fremont Health, where Overholt is a registered nurse and Kuester is a physical therapist.
Today, the women share a deep and abiding friendship. Both live in Arlington with their families. Their kids are friends and they attend the same sporting events and church — something they never anticipated as teens.
Overholt was in high school when her mom said she needed to get a job to pay for gas. Overholt became a dishwasher in the hospital cafeteria in Wayne. She had to wear a hairnet — not too cool for a high school student — but Overholt said the hospital worked around her schedule so she could play softball.
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Kuester lived in Concord, about 12 miles northeast of Wayne. Needing a summer job, she began working as a cleaning tech, alongside her sister Elly, at the Wayne hospital. Kuester’s duties included emptying trash, cleaning patient rooms and vacuuming.
Overholt’s grandmother, the late Marlene Nissen, worked with Kuester in the housekeeping department.
“Missy’s grandma taught me how to have a first job,” Kuester said. “She trained me.”
Both women’s careers began with aspirations and hard work.
After she started classes at Wayne State College, Kuester also picked up a second job as a front desk attendant in the hospital’s its wellness center.
That job fit well with Kuester’s plans to earn a degree in applied human sports physiology. Kuester later quit the housekeeping job, when she became a physical therapy tech. She enjoyed working in therapy department, which she did through college.
“I found it fulfilling to see people get better,” Kuester said. “It was challenging. Every patient is unique and has different needs, multiple body parts to work on, multiple diagnoses that you’re working with. It was interesting to me.”
It was motivational, too.
“That’s what catapulted me to apply for physical therapy school,” said Kuester, who went to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Meanwhile, Overholt’s mom, Brenda Nissen — a nurse at the Wayne hospital — had enrolled her then-teenage daughter in a certified nursing assistant course. Overholt worked as a CNA and her mom encouraged her to join the nursing profession.
“I really wanted to be an accountant, but my mom said I’d make a good nurse, so I enrolled in nursing school,” Overholt said.
Overholt graduated from Clarkson College with a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 2007.
Kuester graduated from Wayne State College in 2005 and therapy school at UNMC in 2008. Kuester accepted a job in the MFH rehabilitation department that same year.
After she graduated, Overholt started working in the emergency room at Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
“I like the pace of it,” Overholt said. “I enjoy the adrenalin of it all.”
Overholt came to work in the emergency department at MFH in 2012.
“I love the variety of patients we get. I really enjoy the people I work with. We have the same sense of humor,” Overholt said.
A few years after Kuester had been working at MFH, she saw Overholt in the hospital cafeteria.
“Hey, aren’t you from Wayne? Didn’t I work with your mom at the Wayne hospital?” Kuester asked Overholt.
It was an initial connection.
Life continued. Overholt works the night shift, but Kuester occasionally saw her.
Both live in Arlington, where Kuester’s son, Micah, and Overholt’s son, Brody, were set to start kindergarten.
“We had a few conversations about that,” Kuester said. “I was really nervous. It was my first kid going to school.”
As they grew, both boys discovered they like athletics, so their moms began spending every weekend together at sporting events.
“Lots of bleacher time,” Overholt said.
The women now gather socially with the same group of friends.
“We’re in the same community,” Overholt said. “We have similar friends with the same interests and it’s just kind of crazy how that all came about.”
Overholt appreciates Kuester.
“Her personality is amazing,” Overholt said. “She’s a joy to be around. She’s a great parent.”
Kuester enthusiastically describes Overholt as fun, kind and trustworthy.
“We’re doing life together and we help each other out, getting kids to and from places,” Kuester added.
Overholt now works as a bedside nurse two days a week in the emergency department. She then works as a nurse coordinator, inputting data for the hospital’s stroke program.
Kuester is a rehab clinical coordinator.
As teens growing up in the Wayne area, neither could have anticipated the connections they’d have as adults.
“You don’t realize that some of those connections you make in your early years can carry you through a lifetime,” Kuester said.
Yet they’ve seen the results.
“We have a great friendship that started in a hospital,” Overholt said.
And they’ve been there for each other.
Overholt remembers when MFH applied to be certified as an acute, stroke-ready hospital. The Joint Commission reviewer came to the hospital one day in February to evaluate the care given to patients in the emergency department and inpatient units. Various staff members were part of the review.
Like anyone being reviewed, Overholt wanted everything to go well.
“I was so nervous,” she said.
Then Kuester came to Overholt’s department.
Kuester just winked at her friend.
That silent, but affirming gesture made all the difference. Overholt relaxed.
After the rigorous, onsite review, MFH announced in April that it had earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval and the American Stroke Association’s Heart-Check mark for Acute Stroke Ready Hospital Certification.
Now, the women are looking to the future.
“I plan to raise up my family in our small town with our good friends,” Kuester said.
Overholt expressed similar sentiments, adding something else.
“Our work family is great here,” Overholt said. “I love the small hospital atmosphere. I really do.”
