Women of Legacy Award Presented at BHS Foundation Crystal Ball

March 10, 2008 -- (BUTLER, Pa.) -- Jean Purvis of Penn Township was awarded the fifth annual Women of Legacy Award presented by the Butler Health System Foundation during the Crystal Ball on Saturday, March 8 at the Pittsburgh Marriott North in Cranberry Township.

Purvis has always truly believed in serving and caring for communities. And her track record shows it. Her commitment to the health of the people of Butler County has driven her efforts over the past few years, and that work culminated in the opening of the Butler County Community Health Clinic this year to address the needs of the working people in Butler County that do no have health care coverage.

Born in Washington, PA, Jean Purvis was raised with compassion for others and a strong belief in caring for the community. And that is precisely what she has done for many, many years.

A graduate of Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Purvis began her career in communications with E.R. Squibb and Sons in New York City. She came to Butler in 1945 when she married internist Joe Purvis, M.D., who followed in his father’s footsteps of caring for the people of Butler County. Here she raised five children, then returned to school to secure her master’s degree in English from Slippery Rock University.

Purvis then took on the role of communications specialist for the Butler-based architectural firm Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates. She retired from there in 1989 but continued to provide communications consulting to graphic design firms in Pittsburgh.

While Purvis led an active professional life, her lasting legacy to the people of Butler County has been an unending commitment to developing care programs where the gaps existed in the system. Her first major foray into that world was in 1960, when the County Health Department was voted out of existence in Butler County. Her husband told her the thing he would miss most was the critical role their visiting nurses played in the care of his patients. It was from this that Purvis took her cue -- and together with a close friend worked tirelessly for almost four years to make the Visiting Nurses Association of Western Pennsylvania a reality in Butler County.

From her early years as one of the March of Dimes “marching mothers” raising money to defeat polio to her commitments to education through her tenure as Butler Area School Board member and Butler County Community College Foundation Board member, Purvis has never stopped. When she joined the Butler Health System Board more than 15 years ago, it’s believed she became the first woman to serve in that capacity.

And she just doesn’t quit. More than five years ago, Purvis began the research to address another pressing community issue – health and dental care for the uninsured. While this is a growing national problem, Purvis was going to correct it in her corner of the world. She researched clinics in Hilton Head, SC, Erie, PA and others to determine what the answer to this challenge would be in Butler County. She picked the brains of hospital people, doctors, dentists and business people. She partnered with retired businessman Ken Bennett and gave birth to the Community Health Clinic, a concrete approach to providing health and dental care to the working uninsured in Butler County. The clinic opened just weeks ago and already the stream of patients has begun. It is entirely community-driven: serviced, staffed, managed and created by community volunteers – almost all of whom have been recruited, secured and inspired by Jean Purvis.

Women of Legacy Award      

The Women of Legacy Award seeks to honor those who have notably contributed to the health and well-being of our Butler County community through excellence in patient care, overcoming personal illness or crisis, or improving some aspect of our community's health.