At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.
In 1928, Mary Breckinridge, founder of Frontier Nursing University established the Courier Program, recruiting young people to come work in the Kentucky Mountains and learn about service to humanity. Couriers escorted guests safely through remote terrain, delivered medical supplies to remote outpost clinics, and helped nurse-midwives during home visits and births. Frontier has benefited tremendously from the 1,600 Couriers who have served since 1928.
Jean White Byrne learned of the Courier 
Program from a professor at Maryville College. Her professor encouraged her to travel to Frontier in her junior year to assist with bookkeeping. However, it was not until just prior to her graduation in 1941 that she made the decision to come to Frontier Nursing Service.
Jean remembers her first night in Wendover. She arrived during a going away party where Mary Breckinridge was playing Bridge, one of her favorite games. She remembers fooling Mary Breckinridge by betting on her hand in a way that she had not expected Jean to do. Jean remembers that Mary Breckinridge was not particularly thrilled about this.
Jean remembers a few “unspoken” rules that the Couriers abided by while in Wendover. First, they were not allowed to speak about religion or politics. Second, they always had to stay on the path. If they traveled off of the path they could have crossed into moonshiner’s territory which was forbidden. Jean says they all stuck by these rules while they were there.
As a Courier, Jean worked in the hospital every Monday. She rode by horseback through rain, wind, or sleet to be there every week. She remembers riding horses with two fellow Couriers up Camp Creek one day. They were riding along a narrow path approaching the mountain when the horses were startled by a loud sound, from what they later found to be a fallen tree in the forest. The horses turned the other direction and took off running. Somehow all three of the Couriers managed to remain in their saddles, and they were able to pull the horses back onto the path.
One of Jean’s most significant memories at Wendover occurred in 1942 when the Garden House caught fire. She was the last one in the Garden House that day. While they were eating in the Big House, they heard someone yell “Fire!” and everyone rushed out to the Garden House to see smoke billowing out. The bookkeeper at the time was able to grab a typewriter and some records through a window, but all other records as well as personal items left inside were destroyed by the fire.
Mary Breckinridge was away when the fire occurred so Agnes Louis had to find a way to communicate the events to her. Mary Breckenridge instructed Agnes to begin re-building the Garden House immediately.
Celia Coyte and Jean were the only two who were able to do architectural drawing as they both had taken mechanical drawing in high school so they took the lead on the re-design project. Jean and Cecilia agreed that the old Garden House did not have enough wash basins, toilets, or tubs so they created the new design with 3 tubs and 4 basins. They decided the bathroom should take on a dormitory style. The Garden House was rebuilt exactly as they designed it.
Jean stayed at Wendover until September of 1942 when she got married. She was working for various attorney’s offices in the Maryville area. In 1943, Mary Breckinridge called her to ask for her assistance in Wendover. Jean returned from 1943 to 1946 while her husband was in the service.
During her return, she remembers having her appendix out at the hospital in Hyden. She was directly across from a birthing room and remembers hearing a woman giving birth, assisted by one of the Frontier midwives. It was a nerve-racking experience for both the new midwife and the new mother. However, when Brownie from Frontier arrived, she was able to calm down both parties and the rest of the delivery went smoothly.
Jean returned home to Maryville in 1946 but will always remember her experiences as a Courier and hold them dear to her heart.
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).