Staff spotlight

Shanda Walenta, Educator RN II, joined the UMMC School of Nursing this past summer as one of the three nurse educators working with the partnership between the SON and UMMC’s Center for Telehealth. Shanda will be helping train every school nurse in our state whose school district has ‘opted-in’ to using the UMMC telehealth services through a grant with the Mississippi Department of Education. We are excited she chose to join us!

Shanda is a 1994 graduate of the UMMC SON where she served as class president. After graduation, she worked in the PICU and pediatric nephrology at UMMC and the newborn nursery at Woman’s Hospital. For the previous eight years, she has been a school nurse for Madison County School District. Her experience as a school nurse is what peaked her interest for this position and has served her well for her new role!

There are many words that can be used to describe Shanda, and generous, humble, outgoing, and compassionate are just a few! She is a ‘lover of all God’s creatures’ and is well known for rehabbing local wildlife orphan babies, including squirrels, opossums, raccoons, rabbits, and skunks. When these babies fall out of their nests or are abandoned in the wild, people call Shanda to take them into her home where she feeds them with tiny syringes until the animal can feed through a baby bottle and eventually be released back into the wild. One of the squirrels she ‘raised’ was released into the wild a few years ago but continues to visit daily for his pecans which Shanda feeds by hand.

Shanda is happily married to Jason Walenta (25 years) and together they have three boys — Will (23), Sam (21), and Max (18). Shanda also has three house pets: Sookie, a 13-year-old pug; Hoss, a 10-year-old yellow lab; and Billy, a 4-year-old pot belly pig. Billy, the pig, became famous when she worked as a school nurse in Madison. He even has his own Instagram page @Billy_the_Piggy.

Shanda says her favorite thing in life is to laugh and to be happy because life is way too short and her favorite quote is, “A sense of humor is needed armor. Joy in one’s heart & some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.” When you get to know her, you will see that she lives this every day!