Alumni Spotlight – Deb (Klinefelter) Bauman ’67

“Magical!” That’s how Deb Bauman describes her Warrior years. “I made the best friends of my life at Susquehannock and I still have them. When we get together, we’re 61 going on 16!”

Deb Bauman attended SHS in an era where the best female students were encouraged to further their academic careers in either education or nursing. With an interest first generated by health studies, she chose the latter and, upon graduation, embarked on a 42-year adventure, touching countless lives.

A consistent honor roll student, she recalls the library as one of her favorite places to be and was an active member in Library Club. She was also active in the school’s Future Nurses of America chapter. As a performing artist, she spent three years in mixed chorus and was in the senior play Stage Door with her husband-to-be, Bruce Bauman (’67).

She lists Mr. Ruth and Mrs. Krumrine among her most memorable teachers, but choral director Melba Shank stands out. “She was really someone to be feared,” Deb recalled.  “But she taught me a kind of self-discipline that served me all my life.”

After graduating in 1967, she enrolled in a three-year nursing program at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, which she successfully completed in 1970. “I was worried about competing with girls from larger schools,” she said. “But I had no trouble. It gave me an understanding of the solid background I received.”

Following this came a year of work at York Hospital, followed by a move to Philadelphia following her marriage to Bruce. While he finished his engineering degree at Drexel, Deb worked at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania.

Upon the couple’s return to York, she worked as an operating room nurse at the Polyclinic Hospital in Harrisburg for two years, leaving in 1974 to raise a family. While her children were growing and attending Southern schools, Deb worked nights and weekends at York Hospital, was a substitute nurse in the School District, and also pursued a bachelor’s degree in nursing at York College, a process that took seven years.

With her children in secondary school, she began working for the Visiting Nurses Association and again took shifts at York Hospital. This led to an assignment in the Open Heart Intensive Care Unit and work toward a master’s degree at Widener University. Graduating as a nurse practitioner, she began work at the WellSpan Center for Aging in York, working with Alzheimer patients and supporting their families.

Throughout her working career, she was active in the community, including service to the Young Community Women’s Club of Glen Rock, her church as a choir member, and as an Inspector of Elections in Glen Rock. As part of WellSpan’s community outreach, she is a frequent speaker on the subject Laughing Your Way to Good Health.

In 2002, she was asked to open the York Hospital Congestive Heart Failure Clinic for WellSpan in York, managing patients ages 20’s to late 90’s with heart failure by adjusting their medications, helping change behavior and keeping them out of the hospital. It is here that Deb chose to begin a new chapter in her life, looking forward to a happy retirement in a town she never left. Ranking high on her to-do list is to spend time with her son Dan, daughter Susanne, and their families.  Dan (’93), of Lawrence, KS, works for IBM and holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh.  Susanne (’95) lives in Durham, NC and holds a PHD in biochemistry from Duke University.