Retiree’s Legacy Supports Radiography Program

At the end of October 2024, Dr. Jason Hurst announced the naming of the Jo Ann Schilling Radiography Program. “Ensuring that our community has enough healthcare workers in every discipline is so important to the health of our community,” said Hurst. “That’s why the generosity of donors like Jo is so important. They help us provide our students with the best possible training.”

In addition, Hurst announced that Schilling had also pledged an estate gift that will continue to support the Radiography Program’s students and faculty in perpetuity. A native of Roanoke, Virginia, Schilling came to what was then the Cleveland County Technical Institute as the department head of the Radiologic Technology Program in 1977 after working in the field as a technician for 16 years and teaching for five years at another college.

She spent the next 22 years training students and helping strengthen CCC’s Radiography Program, retiring in 1999. During the program’s early years, there were only about 10 students per class; today, there are 50. The program has also expanded, adding certificates in MRI and CT and most recently, through a partnership with Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute, medical sonography. “I’ve heard that Jo tried to bring sonography into the program when she was the department head, but the College didn’t have the resources. That’s exactly why we value donors and supporters like Jo,” said Hurst.

The event honoring Schilling was attended by past and present faculty and staff, several of Schilling’s former students, and friends. Schilling spoke briefly, telling a story about how she and one of her students, Lee Ann Mayse, now the program’s clinical coordinator, took the mammography exam simultaneously. “I was the instructor; she was the student, and she bested me by three points!” laughed Schilling.