Wyoming Nurses Association Central Region VP, Megan Mendoza with Kasey Powell in the middle and on the right, Abby Bremer, Wyoming Nurses Association President.

Eastern Wyoming College Assistant Professor of Nursing, Kasey Powell recently was honored by the Wyoming Nurses Association (WNA) with the Inspiring Our Future Nurses award.

“I was honored with the Inspiring Our Future Nurses award,” Powell said. “Our Wyoming nursing programs are blessed with some very talented and amazing nursing instructors and it’s humbling and an absolute honor to even be mentioned with such names, let alone be presented with an award like this.”

The award is given to a WNA nursing instructor member who has been a positive influence on the future of nurses or Wyoming, according to the WNA’s website.

“As much as I am proud of Kasey winning this award, I am truly not surprised,” EWC Director of Nursing Dr. Monica Teichert said. “Her energy and passion for teaching is infectious. She is very deserving of this award as she does truly have a positive influence on the future of nurses and nursing.  She inspires our nursing students, and she inspires our nursing program team.  I am beyond proud of her and so glad she was provided this very commendable recognition.”

Kasey Powell teaches EWC’s day cohort in Douglas, and in this role, she takes her students from the very beginning of the program to the very end.

Powell has been a full-time Assistant Professor of Nursing on EWC’s Douglas Campus since 2021, but has been involved in the EWC nursing program since its start in January 2016 She has served as a guest lecturer and later, as an adjunct instructor. “I love mentoring and educating students and new graduate nurses,” Powell added. “It’s an opportunity to positively influence them and encourage them along their journey.”

Teichert said Powell “not only has important attributes of being a great teacher, like empathy and compassion, she also keeps up on evidence-based practice to keep our students learning the most up to date and current ways of nursing. She is great with bridging academia with real-life nursing, as she is also a phenomenal practicing nurse.”

“She advocates for her students and for this college in ways that only a person who has teaching and nursing in their heart can do. Kasey is a very inspiring person and truly a vital part of our team from their first day in the nursing classroom to the day they are given the “coveted nursing pen at the end,” Teichert said, “her passion is to turn our students into the best nurses in the industry.  This is always on the forefront of her mind and heart, which the students feel and pushes them to also want the same.”

Easten Wyoming College Nursing Instructor Kasey Powell demonstrates to her class how to take a blood pressure, with the help of EWC nursing student Hope Wood.

Before taking on the instructor’s role and teaching future nurses, Powell worked as a Registered Nurse on the Medical Surgical and OB floors at Memorial Hospital of Converse County in Douglas. She has worked there since 2011. She also was the Director of Inpatient Services where she managed clinical staff on Medical Surgical, OB and the ICU.  “Although I am employed full-time at EWC,” Powell said, “I continue to pick up intermittent shifts at MHCC as well.”

“The EWC nursing program is very special to me and I feel like we currently have a really strong group of nursing faculty and leadership team leading us in the right direction,” Powell said.

When her students arrive on the first day of class, she said, it is important to her to not praise the students for making such a special decision to join the best profession in the world but to reiterate the significant responsibility and extraordinary impact they can have on their patients.

“I try to lead by example”, says Powell, “and bring my passion and energy as a nurse to my role as an educator by sharing my nursing experiences and stories. These students are our hope to address the current and future nursing shortage, and I feel it’s our responsibility to encourage and inspire them.” Nurses, Powell said, go above and beyond the call of duty every day. They are the first to arrive and last to leave and have a “heart and soul of caring.”

Born and raised in Wheatland, Wyoming Powell attended the University of Northern Colorado where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Kinesiology-Exercise Sports Science in 2002. She later attended the University of Wyoming and received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2011. She will graduate with her Master’s Degree in Nursing Education in May 2023.