Donna McMullen — Marvelous Mz. Murph

 

By Deb Peterson

When Donna McMullen first thought about hosting her own talk show, her decision wasn’t an automatic yes. The idea didn’t come naturally to her, but her husband, Patrick, believed in her, and she’s the kind of person who sees possibilities and opportunities, and has the courage to say yes to adventures.

“I never had anyone in my corner before Patrick,” Donna says. “Doing the show truly helped me believe in myself.”

It’s pretty fair to say that the rest of us in the Twin Lakes Area, particularly the large medical community that is Baxter Regional Medical Center, has believed in Donna for a long time. Her name is nearly synonymous with BRMC. For 10 years she has been the voice of the medical center, creating press releases, newsletters, flyers, posters, brochures, and other communications as BRMC’s director of marketing. She plans events and open houses, and coordinates education for 1,400+ employees. Plus, her weekly television show. You can catch Donna’s show — BRMC Healthy Connections — on Hometown XL7-TV Wednesday and Thursday at 6:30 p.m., Friday at 6 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

“I am so proud to be a small part of a great hospital whose leaders always put patients first,” Donna says.

She is especially proud of the hospital’s decision to purchase 3D Tomosynthesis mammography equipment, not only for the radiology department, but also for the mobile mammography unit, known affectionately by local women as the MMU.

“Women are always told that early detection is the key to minimizing the effects of breast cancer and this special equipment does just that, and so much more,” Donna says. “I have personally known of several women who were diagnosed in very early stages and now lead a marvelous cancer-free life! In some cases if a 2D mammography had been done, the cancer might not have been visible for years, and would be much more advanced. We have so much to be thankful for in the Twin Lakes Area when it comes to quality healthcare. Our physicians and clinical folks take great pride in giving their friends and neighbors the best healthcare possible.”

There’s no doubt Donna is an important advocate for our medical center. She’s also a fascinating woman outside of her work. Under all that professionalism, she’s a cowgirl. She also sewed on a Singer sewing machine in store windows when she was a young girl, and she’s passionate about rescue pets.

Donna was born in New Hyde Park, New York, and lived in Rochester and Buffalo before moving to Velva, North Dakota, 22 miles southeast of Minot and only 1.5 hours from the Canadian border. Her dad sold sewing machines for Singer, and that’s why they moved fairly often. Donna sat at a sewing machine in store windows sewing away to attract attention for her dad.

She was definitely daddy’s girl. Irish through and through, the son of Irish immigrants, Jack Moore called his daughter Mz. Murph and often sang to her the old Irish folk song, “Did Anyone Ever Tell You Mrs. Murphy?,” adding his own variation, “Did anyone ever tell you Murph that you’re the apple of your daddy’s eye?” Years later, Donna would honor her dad’s memory with a special license plate — MZ MURPH — when she bought her first Mercedes.

Velva is where Donna fell in love with horses, and all animals really. She boarded three horses — Lady, Kankakee, and Molly — at a farm near her home.

“I was a cowgirl,” she says. “Molly was a great old gal who taught me a lot about horses. Never ride a horse bareback while carrying a bucket of feed in each hand. I went for a tumble and Molly got the grain!”

She passed her love of horses on to her two daughters, Shana and Sarah, who had horses growing up in San Diego County, California, where Donna lived for 25 years during her first marriage.

It was in San Diego that Donna realized how much she loves learning.

“I think I’ve gone to school since the 1960s,” she says. “I love learning.”

She wanted to be an anthropologist, someone who solves problems specific to humanity. Over the years she has studied psychology and gerontology, the study of aging, earning a bachelor’s degree. She was a marketing director and licensed administrator in various parts of the country for The Goodman Group, a company devoted to senior living and health care. The company’s motto: Moments matter. Live them well. You might say that Donna lives by that motto, too, although it’s my observation and not something she told me.

Her first marriage over, and her mother aging in Florida, Donna requested a transfer to Largo, Florida, near St. Petersburg, to help care for her mom. It was there that she met and married an Irish psychiatrist, Patrick McMullen, known as “Doc,” which surely would have made her Irish dad smile.

When it came time to retire, the couple chose Bull Shoals after falling in love with the sense of community in the Twin Lakes Area on a visit. They golfed and fished together while they could, but debilitating health issues have confined Patrick to home the last few years.

“We’ve learned you can’t orchestrate life,” Donna says. “We stay positive.”

She still goes fishing with good friends Rhonda and Duane Bell every September for her birthday, and is looking for a ranch-style home closer to Mountain Home where Patrick can get around more easily and Donna can have one more horse.

“I need to be more physical than I am,” she says. She knows she needs to be more active before the osteoarthritis in her elbows and knees gets any worse.

For now, she and Patrick cherish their hours together. “We just love being together,” she says, “talking to each other in the evenings.”

Patrick and his colleagues honored Donna in 2012 with double honorary Human and Spiritual Development master’s degrees for Life Span Psychology and Moral/Ethical Theology, with emphasis and special interest in geriatrics. It means so much to her that she gets a little teary when she talks about it.

She’s also an avid reader of mysteries, eager to solve the case before reaching the last chapter, and she is passionate about her pets. Josey, their Border Collie, named after the outlaw Josey Wales, was adopted from the Humane Society. Donna won Skipper, a shih tzu, in a CARTI luncheon auction. Sparky is a black and white cat adopted from the Humane Society, and Buddy is a gray cat that was up for adoption at Dr. Snodgrass’s office.

There is room left in Donna’s big heart for service through the Mountain Home Lions Club, where she is the Lion Tamer, the person who sets up and tears down each weekly Lions meeting. When she can’t be there, Lucinda Blair and Renae Schocke help her out.

“I always look forward to our weekly Lions meetings, and Donna is one of the big reasons why,” Renae says. “She always wears a sweet, sweet welcoming smile, and it makes you happy to be there with her.”

Renae chairs the gigantic annual Lions Club auction, and knows firsthand how nice it is to have Donna’s help.

“Last year she helped out tremendously with the Lions Club auction in several ways, from making sure we had the right equipment for presentations to performing team lead duties, which is a huge undertaking,” Renae says. “Donna is a great example of what it means to get involved in, and support, your community.”

“I’m incredibly proud to be a Lion,” Donna says. “It’s a great team, a remarkable group of people to be a part of. They are the doers in the community.”

The Lions are clearly a good match for Donna. She is most definitely a doer in our community, and I think she could probably get away with calling herself an anthropologist. M! October/November 2015