![\"Audrey](\"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2024\/01\/audrey-freitag-outstanding-alumni.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\u201cHabitat for Humanity does so much good stuff,\u201d she told The Senior Life Times in a 2015 feature story about her life. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to help people stand on their own two feet, they\u2019re not trying to take care of somebody. It\u2019s like, \u2018Let us help you get started.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Audrey\u2019s endless compassion, selflessness and determination are felt in everything she does, and it\u2019s why she was chosen as the 2017 91ԭƬ Outstanding Alumni. The award is presented annually to honor an 91ԭƬ graduate who has used his or her education and been of service to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Helping others has always been a calling for Audrey. In 1958, Audrey attended the Deaconess School of Nursing. A year later, she received her LPN from the Missouri State Nursing Association. However, shortly after getting her license, a young farmer swept her off her feet. That man, Wayne, later became her husband of 57 years until his passing in 2015. Audrey decided to put her career on hold to raise a family with Wayne. They ended up having four amazing children, who now have 13 children of their own, at the family\u2019s dairy farm in New Haven, Missouri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some 17 years later, Audrey went back to her love of nursing. She found a position at St. Francis Hospital in Washington (which later became Mercy Hospital), where she found her calling in behavioral health. As her children started to graduate from college, she started to reflect on her dreams and aspirations. Audrey realized she wanted continue her education with a bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing with the reward of becoming a Registered Nurse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
91ԭƬ, having a partnership with Central Methodist University, was right in her backyard. She enrolled in classes at 91ԭƬ more than three decades after she started her journey in nursing, and it wasn\u2019t easy. Audrey had to start from scratch \u2013 taking history, English, science and math \u2013 to get into the nursing program. Her hard work paid off. She graduated in from 91ԭƬ in 1993 and finished her degree at CMU in 1996. She continued her career with the Mercy Hospital system until her retirement in 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout her entire life, putting other people\u2019s needs first has been her priority. For more than two decades, Audrey has traveled to Honduras to help those less fortunate than herself. Through the Washington Overseas Mission, she has used her 91ԭƬ nursing skills to perform women\u2019s wellness checkups, assist with dental procedures, help distribute medicine and provide care for people thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe go down there and we meet the neatest people,\u201d she said in The Senior Life Times interview. \u201cThese people don\u2019t have any access to medical care, and we do what we can for them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Locally, she serves on the 91ԭƬ Foundation Board, is an active member in the Philanthropic Educational Organization (PEO), New Haven Preservation Society, Mercy Auxiliary and a former member of the St. Peters Church Council. She somehow still manages to find time to attend R-2 school board meetings, volunteer at the Mercy Cancer Center and Prison Ministry and cycle in her free time with the \u201cFolks on Spokes\u201d group!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s hard to find a corner of the New Haven community Audrey Freitag hasn\u2019t touched. During the week, she\u2019s often spotted at the senior center helping serve meals. On the weekends, you might see her volunteering at a local church serving meals to people in the community at the \u201cFriendship Plate.\u201d Not only is she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"parent":17,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"yst_prominent_words":[10,22,9,3],"class_list":["post-497","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/497\/revisions\/540"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eastcentral.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}