Val Schott, director of the OSU Office of Rural Health with his collection of OSU memorabilia

OSU Pride Works

If Val Schott ever is in your vicinity you might want to lock up your engine paint if you have any, because he likes to paint stuff with it.

You can’t blame him, really. The paint is orange, and it is heat-proof and just the thing for painting the barbeque grill, and the utensils, and the satellite television stand and dish, and whatever else. Schott takes it all to tailgate parties at OSU home games, where orange totally matters.

Nobody has more fun tailgating than Schott and his wife, Robin, who drive to the Stillwater campus from Oklahoma City to join friends. They quickly assemble three pop-up tents, fire up the grill and feed an average of 60 people.

“We serve orange food, making everything orange we possibly can,” he says. Carrots, Cheetos, cheese – it’s all good. He plans ahead, too, investing in orange and black Oreo cookies at Halloween and freezing them, guaranteeing a ready supply.

His co-worker Jan Barber has attended his tailgate fêtes, and says, “Val is like an ambassador for OSU. He told me that someone once asked him if he any shirts other than orange and he said, ‘Yes, black’.”

Schott is a Stillwater native and a 1966 OSU grad. His dad, his uncle, two aunts, his wife, children and numerous nieces and nephews all are Cowboys, too.

He has a raft of OSU memorabilia including an OSU monopoly game he has never played. It sits on a shelf behind an eye-catching “Beat OU” car tag he found while remodeling a house in Stillwater.

Schott is director of the OSU Office of Rural Health, which works with rural physicians and hospitals to ensure accessible, affordable, quality health care in rural communities “Bringing it to OSU three years ago has been a positive change. It has helped us to work more effectively with rural hospitals and doctors,” Schott says. “It’s a natural fit for OSU. We are the ‘rural doctor factory’.”

Schott is a devoted advocate for quality health care and access in rural locations. Behind his winning smile lies “a recovering hospital administrator.” He knows that keeping open the doors of rural hospitals is an important economic boon to a community. Those benefits are measured by the rural health office’s “Rural Health Works” project, which assesses how communities prosper by having a hospital and physicians. Schott says a hospital is usually the second or third largest employer in a rural community.

OSU students and faculty are committed to health care in rural communities, he says, lauding OSU’s consistent high rankings in family and rural medicine. Recent University efforts have resulted in an increased awareness at the state Capitol and in Congress of what OSU does, Schott says.

As telemedicine continues to bring more specialty care to rural medicine, Schott says the possibilities are limitless. “Telemedicine is an exciting phenomenon,” Schott says. “It is also very cool.”

Do you, or someone you know, show OSU pride at work?
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Contact Marla Schaefer, Rounds editor.

OSU Pride Works in the clinics

Top: Cathy Bausley Middle: Elisha Ortiz, Betty Pittman, Lee Ann Marshall Bottom: Pat Johnson, Wayne Crow, Dr. JoAnn Ryan		Clinic employees got a preview of the scrubs they will receive at the OSU Physicians Orange holiday luncheon. As part of the OSU Pride Works campaign, each clinical area employee will receive five sets of scrubs and a jacket. Non-clinical area employees receive two sets of scrubs and two jackets.

Founders Hall-iday

Faculty, staff, students and the public enjoyed a festive Founders Hall-iday Dec. 15 in Founders Hall, of course. Food, drawings, massages, Jeopardy, Eugene Field singers and a visit from Santa all highlighted the festivities for the CHS family.

Round of Applause

November 9-10, “Expert Consultant” for NIH “Best Pharmacy for Children Act”, Bethesda, MD, Dr. Stanley E. Grogg.

Interviewed by New York Times for article about the spending habits of pet owners regarding their pets to the point of neglecting their own medical and personal care; and the physical/psychological benefits of the bond between people and their pets, Dr. Sherril M. Stone.

Presented five posters at Oklahoma Research Day at University of Central Oklahoma, Patrick Tucker, Drs. Laurie Clark, Stan Sherman, Danny Thomason and Sherril M. Stone.