USU nursing student Gene Miner has returned to USU to finish what he started. After 50 years, and several stops in between, Miner will finish his RN to BSN degree in 2023. Photo courtesy of Utah State Today.
LOGAN – It’s been 55 years since Gene Miner arrived at Utah State University and jumped right into a class schedule of 20 credit hours in a pre-med course of study.
After two quarters, with a grade-point average he described as point-one, he left Utah State; he said he wasn’t ready for college.
This year, more than five decades later, he’s back and studying to become a registered nurse.
“It was something I started and I never finished,” Miner says, “and I think I’m going to make an attempt to see if they’ll overlook my previous records and let me back in and see if I can finish this up.”
After a tour with the Marines he spent 20 years at the Salt Lake Fire Department trained as an EMT and he is now at St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. He also has an associate’s degree in nursing from Salt Lake Community College. Working in the medical field is a family tradition.
“My mother was a nurse, my brother who was a year younger than I, was a fire captain, paramedic, RN and he was an impetus for that,” Miner explains. “He got out earlier than I did from the Marine Corps. I did four years active, he did two years active.
“He was in the fire department so I got into the fire department. So, we kind of followed each other back and forth. It’s kind of an interesting situation for both of us.”
Gene has worked 27 years at St. Mark’s, starting in the ER. When he earns his USU degree, he has a plan.
“Now I’m just kind of a PRN at the hospital looking into moving into Behavioral Health,” Miner adds. “That seems to be a pretty much misunderstood area of nursing now and they’re probably one of the most mis-treated populations in our health care community.”
Gene says his approach to life is simple, “I like to stay busy,” he said. “To me, retiring is changing jobs. If I run out of projects, I’ll just come up with another one.”