Membership Directory, 1980-1981
Members of the now disbanded Bowling Green Warren County Medical Society Alliance have donated the records of their organization to the Manuscripts & Folkife Archives at WKU. If not for these posterity-minded individuals, the organization might only be remembered for two nursing scholarships that it administered for many years. These scholarships–the Newman & Lena Harris Scholarship (begun in 1972) and the Maydelle Johnson Funk Scholarship (started in 1978)–will continue to be awarded annually to WKU nursing students under the aegis of the College Heights Foundation.
In 1939 the Auxiliary to the Warren County Medical Society was formed to host the Auxiliary of the Kentucky Medical Association which was holding its annual meeting in Bowling Green. The organization disbanded immediately after the meeting was held, but it reorganized on 14 March 1952. The group met bi-monthly in conjunction with the Warren County Medical Society. Over the years, the organization sponsored a number of activities including an annual Doctor’s Day, bicycle helmet distributions, information meetings about youth health, and holiday benevolence projects. In addition the group made contributions to preserve the Dr. Ephraim McDowell House in Danville, Kentucky. Social and fundraising events peppered the organization’s calendar each year. Initially known as the Tri-County Medical Auxiliary, the organization altered its name in 1986 to the Auxiliary to the Warren County Medical Society; it changed an additional time in March 1993 to the Bowling Green Warren County Medical Society Alliance.
The organization had a long-standing commitment to nursing scholarships. In the 1970s, the group inherited a scholarship program that had originated in 1952 as a collaborative effort of the Warren County Medical Society and the local chapter of the Business & Professional Women’s Club. These scholarships were more formally organized as memorial gifts and bequests were received. The organization’s archives includes lists of scholarship winners as well as applications from 1985 to 2011. The collection also contains the organization’s administrative documents, membership directories, some newletters and photographs, news clippings, and several scrapbooks documenting the Alliance’s activities. To see a finding aid for this collection, click here. To see finding aids for other local club and organization archives search in TopSCHOLAR and/or KenCat.
- Alliance Membership Directory, 1980-1981