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GOOD NEWS
Boxing
champ is a knockout with patients at Shelbyville nursing home
Patients at Bedford County Nursing Home got an unexpected thrill
during the 2002 Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration.
Four-time heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield dropped by
to shake hands and visit for a spell.
 Each
August, when the celebration takes place in Shelbyville, many of the
out-of-town spectators, participants and coordinators attending the
show drop by to visit old friends who now reside in the nursing
home, says Administrator Janet Farrar. But having a boxing champion
stop by to go a few rounds with patients was an unusual surprise.
“They were excited. Several of my men knew who he was and what he
had done,” Farrar says. “I didn’t catch any of my patients checking
to see what his ear looked like, though. They were more polite than
that.”
Besides his own boxing achievements, Holyfield is famous for being
on the receiving end of Mike Tyson’s illegal ear-biting. The boxer
from Atlanta also won a bronze medal in the 1984 Olympics before his
professional debut.
Farrar says that Holyfield had come to Shelbyville for the horse
show, but decided he wanted to do something for the city while he
was in town. He enjoys signing autographs for people who don’t
normally get to meet celebrities, so he showed up at the Bedford
County Medical Center and ended up pumping hands with patients at
the nursing home located on-site.
“It was just a lucky day,” Farrar says.
Many of Bedford County Nursing Home’s patients are lifelong fans of
the Walking Horse National Celebration, so the event is always a
special time of year. The nursing home usually takes those patients
who are able to a session of the horse show. In the past, the
facility has cared for people who were involved in creating and
developing the show, such as one woman who served beef sandwiches at
the very first horse show, a former groomer and a former horse
trainer.
For the past few years, the facility has hosted members of the local
4-H Club, who give a presentation updating the patients on all the
equine contenders for that year’s show. The high schoolers have also
brought the patients doughnuts and promotional hats, two staples of
the annual horse show.
“Good News”
is a feature designed to spotlight some of the many
positive aspects of long-term care in Tennessee. Know of a “good
news”
item?
Contact THCA’s Communications Department at info@thca.org.
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