About Benton Hospice Service

Benton Hospice Service has been a part of the healthcare community in the mid-Willamette Valley since 1980. Our goal is to provide compassionate, professional care at the end of life.

History of Benton Hospice Service
Mission, Vision, and Values Statements
Key Hospice Contacts
Current Board Members
Website Artwork by Bonnie Hall

History of Benton Hospice Service

Founded in 1979, Benton Hospice Service is an independent, non-profit organization which is overseen by an all-volunteer Board of Directors.

The modern hospice movement began in 1967 when Cecily Saunders opened the first hospice in England. The idea of helping people die at home, in comfort and surrounded by family inspired Corvallis area healthcare professionals to begin a similar program here in Benton County. In 1977, physician David Kliewer and his wife Jean, a registered nurse, began experimenting with providing end-of-life care to the terminally ill. By 1979, a dedicated group founded Benton Hospice Service, and in 1980 an all-volunteer staff accepted its first patient.

The first year of operation, BHS served less than 20 patients with a volunteer staff working out of donated office space. In 2001, Benton Hospice Service moved into its current office, built with donations from the community. Today we serve over 350 patients annually with over 50 professional staff and more than 120 trained volunteers.

As BHS continues to grow, we remain committed to providing patients and families outstanding quality end-of-life care.

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Mission, Vision, and Values Statements

Mission

Benton Hospice Service provides compassionate, professional care at the end of life. We strive to ease suffering, protect dignity, respect choices, and support grieving.

Vision

Over the next five years, BHS will creatively build on its high quality of service to better meet patient needs at the end of life. We will

expand efforts to provide care at the earliest appropriate time in the patient's illness.
develop appropriate settings for hospice care while preserving choice for the patient.
provide comprehensive staffing even in the face of financial uncertainty.
determine how to bridge gaps between life-extending treatments and traditional hospice care.
assume a community leadership role on end-of-life issues.
maintain organizational independence.

Values

Benton Hospice Service is committed to the following values:

Integrity
Stewardship
Excellence
Compassion
Relationship-centered Care

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Key Hospice Contacts

Lucy Noone, Executive Director
Kevin Worley, RN; Patient Care Coordinator
Dana Evans, MSW, LCSW; Social Services Coordinator
Joelle Osterhaus, Bereavement Coordinator
Mari Beth Hackett, Volunteer Coordinator
Linda Bunch, Executive Assistant and Human Resources Coordinator
Karen Nousen, Outreach Coordinator

You can also reach any BHS staff member at (541) 757-9616

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Current Board Members

Jeanne Smith, Attorney Chair	Jeanne Smith & Associates, PC
Kay Schaffer, PhD Vice Chair	Dean Emeritus, College of Liberal Arts Oregon State University
Sheila Goodwin, RN Secretary	Retired
Scott Meeker, CPA Treasurer	Spectrum CPA Group, LLP
John Bacon, MSW	Therapist, Private Practice
Courtney Campbell, PhD	Philosophy Department Oregon State University
Gary DeLander, PhD	Dean, College of Pharmacy Oregon State University
Maxine Eckes	Academy for Lifelong Learning Oregon State University
Gabriele Ford, RN	Registered Nurse, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Albany General Hospital, Sacred Heart Medical Center
Cyrel Gable, MSW	Linn-Benton Community College
Karen Griffis, FNP	Samaritan Heart and Vascular Institute
Pam Hediger, Attorney	Evashevski, Elliott, Cihak & Hediger, PC
Simon Justice, Rector	Church of the Good Samaritan
Boyd Lyon	Partner, SynNovation Works, LLC SynnOps, LLC
Lia McCabe	Retired, non-profit administration
Jason Phillips, MD	Samaritan Internal Medicine
Deb Rose	Hewlett-Packard
Stephen Shields	Business Consultant
Bruce Thomson, MD	Corvallis Family Medicine
Tamina Toray, PhD	Psychology Department Western Oregon University

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Website Artwork by Bonnie Hall

The flower images on our website are the original artwork of Bonnie Hall.

"Bonnie Hall was born an artist. Though never formally trained, from her earliest school days she showed an innate talent for capturing life and transmitting it to paper. Through a nearly 40-year career as a scientific illustrator she regretted that her intensely detailed black-and-white drawings, though essential to the science, were shut away in scientific journals "very badly needed by very few people". When she discovered color seriagraphy, she found her life's mission. Her screenprints of native wildflowers and a few butterflies were immensely popular in the region. She was anxious that a larger public come to appreciate "the overlooked, the undervalued, or the threatened wild things native to our Pacific Northwest landscape."

Bonnie died of cancer, too young, at 72. She was at the height of her game, having almost mastered screenprinting after 12 years of struggle. Of the 32 large prints she produced, 14 are now out of print, and others are nearly sold out. This book is dedicated to her life and talent, in the hope that through this medium many more people will come to appreciate the natural world in the way that she did."

(from the introduction to Ever Blooming: The Art of Bonnie Hall)

Bonnie exhibited work in numerous juried events sponsored by regional arts associations and by the American Society of Botanical Artists, and continues to be represented by Pegasus Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon. Her work is collected in Ever Blooming: The Art of Bonnie Hall, published by Oregon State University Press.

Benton Hospice Service is grateful for the kind permission of Jim Hall to share Bonnie's artwork on our website and to Pegasus Gallery for their assistance.

California Poppy
Copa de Oro