Kelly Wynn
Kelly Wynn started off her Tri Kappa journey in the Danville chapter.
She loved the “Christmas With Santa” event her home chapter sponsored, but her favorite activity was chairing the yearly birthday party at the Hendricks County Home.
“Originally, we only had the party in May, but I made it into a monthly activity,” Kelly says. “I had members sponsor a person for Christmas presents and their birthdays.”
While Kelly is now a licensed practical nurse hoping to begin work soon on her registered nurse’s degree, she has had an interesting career trajectory.
Raised by her aunt and uncle in Liberty following the death of her parents in a car accident when she was 4 years old, Kelly’s first thought after graduating from Union County High School was nursing school.
“But my parents thought I was too sensitive to be a nurse,” Kelly laughs. “So I went to the University of Indianapolis to study to be a paralegal instead.”
Kelly segued halfway through that course to a degree in social work from Indiana University East in Richmond. After caring for her aging grandfather and working at a mall, she decided to finish her paralegal degree in Indianapolis.
She worked at several law firms and got married. She had two babies, Jackson and Dominick.
After beating breast cancer twice, Kelly decided it was time to get back to her first love – nursing. She drove back and forth from Avon to Ivy Tech in Terre Haute while working in the emergency room at Hendricks Regional Health and raising her children.
“I basically gave up everything for nursing school,” Kelly says.
Kelly lives in a little log cabin in Gosport. After being in the area a while, Kim Strychalski talked to her about transferring her Tri Kappa membership to the Bloomington chapter.
“It’s just nice to be in the Bloomington chapter now,” Kelly says. “I was in a very small group before.”
Kelly now works at IU Bloomington Hospital. Her hectic schedule sometimes makes her commitment to Tri Kappa difficult, but she appreciates the flexibility the chapter affords her.
“I feel guilty sometimes because I work so much, but everyone is understanding (when I have to miss a meeting),” Kelly says. “You can give as much as you want, you can kind of gauge where you are in your life and make that fit into Tri Kappa. We are good with letting people go with what they are comfortable with.”
More About Kelly:
Still has her ’68 mustang from high school
Hunts deer and turkeys
Loves Cher
Won a paralegal award
Spends her spare time gardening, cooking and reading