For Cheyanne Hudson, becoming a nurse wasn’t just about passing tests and studying hard.

Sure, the 28-year-old struggled with keeping solid grades and managing life’s demands outside of school as a single mother.

For this North Coast native with a boisterous personality, the real battle was the one she fought in her own head.

“I didn’t believe in myself. I never saw college as an option for me,” Hudson said.

She hadn’t graduated from high school but had learned a solid work ethic – she’d been punching timecards reliably since she was 14 with a laundry list of employers who always paid less than $10 per hour.

“I was my biggest block,” she said.

Then a job taking care of a quadriplegic offered Hudson a rare taste of what a fulfilling job would be like. Hudson enjoyed building a relationship with her employer, helping her move beyond the physical limitations of a wheelchair.

Through subsequent jobs, the memory lingered, and finally, Hudson found herself at Clatsop Community College, needing her GED to move into a retail supervisor role.

By accident, she found herself in the school’s Lives in Transition program, and hadn’t planned to continue past getting the high school equivalency. But the LIT staff encouraged her to go further – to study in a field that would be meaningful and allow her to earn enough to support her two young children.

“They saw the potential in me that I didn’t see,”?she said.

After taking all the prerequisites, she applied for the school’s selective nursing program, starting what initially felt like an impossible quest.

It was a long road, but on Thursday, Hudson finished that journey as a changed person – and a nurse.

Hudson is one of 16 graduates from the Clatsop Community College Nursing Program who celebrated their achievements – in the classroom, in hospitals and clinics, and in their own lives – in a pinning ceremony at the Elks Lodge in Astoria.

Already, half of them have taken the national exam that qualifies them to work as nurses – and all of them have passed the test.

In fact, the graduates’ high pass rate may be why only one in four applicants to the program is accepted.

“Oregon has the highest pass rate in the country, and Clatsop has the highest pass rate in the state,” said Laurie Choate, the director of the nursing and allied health program, near the ceremony’s completion. The rate for CCC?grads has been 100 percent the past two years.

Ready to take the test herself, Hudson’s attitude about the milestone is a testament to just how much her outlook has changed. She’s not even a bit nervous about the exam.

“I’m only going to take it once, because I’m going to pass,” she said.

A community-based program

Lindi Overton, the interim president at the college, said the college is very proud of the nursing graduates, the nursing faculty, and the many local health care professionals who assist with the training.

“If you visit a local doctor’s office, you will often learn the nursing staff caring for you has gone through his or her training at Clatsop. We are fortunate to have this program in our community,” Overton said.

The program began in 1985 and over 400 students have graduated from the program in its 25 years.

One of this year’s graduates, Amy Chaloux, started working at the emergency department at Columbia Memorial Hospital on Wednesday. She did her “preceptorship,” similar to an internship, at CMH, and had a one-on-one partnership with a working nurse to expose her to real-life medical scenarios and patients. The time she spent there ended up being one long – and ultimately successful – job interview.

“She so wowed them during her clinical experience in the last quarter that they hired her,” Choate said.

Chaloux was awarded the Clinical Nursing Excellence Award at the ceremony by the nursing faculty for her outstanding performance in the field during her preceptorship.

“Amy was complimented by everyone she worked with. Staff members couldn’t believe she wasn’t a seasoned nurse,” said Debbie Kennedy, one of the nursing faculty, at Thursday’s ceremony.

Choate said that while Chaloux’s experience isn’t common, it’s not unusual. Local hospitals are full of CCC nursing grads, she said. The average wage for nurses in Oregon is more than $27 per hour.

Unique relationships

Tillamook County General Hospital provides a clinical experience site for nine CCC nursing students during their 2-year studies as part of a partnership with Tillamook Bay Community College. Dedicated classroom space is provided by the hospital, along with support for the CCC nursing professor who instructs the students.

Between two and four nursing students are hired from the program each year to work at the Tillamook hospital, said Donna Bechthold, RN, the vice president of patient care services at the hospital and chair of the nursing advisory committee for the college since 2008.

“This partnership … meets a vital need in our coastal region by allowing local residents to obtain a nursing degree and find employment in their own community. CCC’s dedicated nursing instructors and professors provide a robust, quality education for the students, which shows in the very high pass rate on the state board exams,” Bechthold said.

Considering its track record, it’s no surprise that plenty of students want to be in the program. But only 20 students are admitted annually, Choate said. For the admitted class for the fall of 2010, the average grade point average is 3.68, the highest in the program’s history, she added.

An emotional end – and a beginning

Still, only about 70 percent of those who enroll in the program will finish. That’s a similar average compared to other programs in Oregon.

“It is a rigorous program,” Choate said.

Jo Black, one of the nursing instructors, agrees.

Black read each students’ statement of thanks as they got their pin during the ceremony, and knows just how much students struggle with hours of studying and heaps of material to cover.

“They have to be focused and dedicated. They sacrifice a lot to get to the pinning ceremony,” Black said.

The average age for students in the program is 31, and many have families or are single parents.

When it was their turn, each graduate honored the contributions of family members, friends, instructors and fellow nurses that brought them to this moment. Black read their thoughts as each received the traditional pin that shows which school a nurse graduated from.

Graduate Erin Estes thanked her daughter, Autumn Estes, for being patient as her mom studied.

“I thank my daughter for continuing to love her mommy despite all the boring homework that got in the way of our fun,” Black read Estes’ words as her own mother, Canby resident Amelia Wilbur, affixed the pin to her lapel.

And Hudson, smiling with pride, thanked her own daughters, Tyler, 8, and Tori, 2, as they ran up to hug their mom. The late nights studying had paid off.

“You are truly the most special girls in the world,” she said, “and I love you.”