News

Pardee celebrates 60th birthday

Ivor and Jane Pardee with daughters Patricia Ann and Margaret Jane Pardee. Ivor Pardee carried out the wishes of his aunt, Margaret R. Pardee, and gave money to start hospital.

By Bill Moss, Published: June 25, 2013

Sixty years ago, construction was under way on a new hospital on Sixth Avenue between Justice and Fleming streets.

Doctors, nurses and patients were getting ready for the move from the old Patton Memorial Hospital.
In November, Dottie Keith would be the first patient admitted (no record of what ailed her). The opening of Margaret R. Pardee marked a major modernization of institutional medicine in the small mountain town, one that has historically responded to need.
"The need in the community, concerned community leadership and donors all came together to provide health care," said Kimerly Hinkelman, the executive director of the Pardee Hospital Foundation and the event-planner-in-chief for Pardee's Diamond Jubilee on Saturday, June 29.
Hinkelman, who came aboard from Philadelphia as foundation director in July 2012, said the commitment of local people has impressed her.
"I'm blown away by the character and heart of this community," she said. "It's incredible."
The Foundation will honor that spirit of charity at the event that Hinkelman describes as a celebration, not a fundraiser.
Besides dinner, music by the Common Saints (an Asheville band that plays covers of beach music, Motown and other popular songs) and silent auction travel, outing and sports packages, the event includes the announcement of Pardee's 2013 philanthropist of the year and, for the first time, the hospital's physician of the year.
The black-tie gala, at the Blue Ridge Conference Center at BRCC, will be a special affair, Hinkelman says.
"We're draping that space within an inch of its life," she said. "Kimberly Clark donated bolts and bolts and bolts of fabric. We're turning it into a ballroom. I think we're going to prove to people in the community that that space can really work for something like that."
Tickets are $100, except for the younger crowd.
"We established a Young Patrons ticket for people under the age of 35 that's half price," she said. "We're really trying to encourage the next generation to get involved with the foundation and philanthropy."

Hendersonville's response to the need for institutional health care goes back 100 years, to the founding of Patton Memorial Hospital on the Fourth of July, 1913. It had 17 rooms and could accommodate 26 patients. Nurses made $8 to $10 a month.
"I think it's interesting that this community has always rallied around a need," Hinkelman said. "A hundred years ago, people were starting to move into a hospital for their health care. This community and the people who had the foresight said this is where medicine is going. They had the foresight to make it happen."
The first fundraiser for Patton, she said, raised $32.40. Three decades later, the county had outgrown Patton.
In 1945, Ivor Pardee came forward with a charge he had received from his aunt. Margaret R. Pardee had left $100,000, and directed her nephew to find a worthy cause to receive it. He chose the Henderson County Hospital Association, on the condition that the organization match the gift. The money helped build Pardee Hospital. It opened with 70 beds on Nov. 15, 1953.
Organized as the Henderson County Hospital Corporation, the hospital was then and now operated by a Board of Directors. It's now perpetuated by appointments of the Henderson County Board of Commissioners, the UNC hospital system and the Pardee board itself.
"Who owns the new hospital? You do: This million dollar investment in health and the alleviation of suffering is yours ... and ours," the Henderson County Medical Society said in an advertisement in the Nov. 13, 1953, issue of the Times-News. "It is ours to maintain as the finest of its kind, as long as each of us knows where responsibility of ownership lies. It must never become the 'government's,' or be thought of as the 'state's.' When this happens, something 'dies.'"
Donated money from Margaret Pardee, matched by doctors and other local donors, plus a state community hospitals grant and a $250,000 bond issue approved by voters, built the hospital at a cost of $860,854.
"Today that tradition continues," the foundation says. Sixty percent of the costs to build, expand and renovate hospital facilities and buy new equipment comes from donations.
Among the expansions over the years was a 30-bed addition in 1957 ($267,000), a 69-bed wing in 1964 ($781,000), the Georgiana and Melvin Lane Wing in 1973 ($833,000), the Kayden Center in 1993 ($1.17 million), a new surgical wing in 1996 ($10 million), the Pardee Care Center in 1999 ($4.4 million), the Medical Office Building in 2000 ($4.1 million), the emergency room and new lobby in 2003 ($11.1 million) and the helipad in 2003 ($300,000).

For tickets or more information call 696.4666.

Silent auction packages at Pardee's Diamond Jubilee:
• (2) Weeks at sleep away camp at Camp Ton-A-Wanda
• Case of mixed wine with membership from Burntshirt Vineyards
• UNC Basketball signed by Roy Williams & Team
• Book Club hosted by the Fountain Head bookstore with author Mark de Castrique
• Balloon Ride for 2
• Balloon Ride for 4 with a $50 gift certificate from Zaxby's
• Cooking Instructions/Dinner prepared by Scott Donaldson for 8 in your home
• Diamond Earrings from Shelley's Jewelry
• Family adventure package to include: (zip line, kayak paddling, Chimney Rock Park & Dinner at Piggy's
• Backyard BBQ for up to 20 from Bad Wolfe BBQ with live music and a case of Sierra Nevada Beer
• Night at the Hilton at Biltmore Park with dinner
• Piece of Antique furniture
• Pit Passes for NASCAR race at Bristol or Atlanta Speedway
• Golfer's Delight – Golf for4 at Hendersonville Country Club, Kenmure Country Club, Champion Hills and Cummings Cove.