VCU School of Nursing alum Harriet Buss established a scholarship to support nursing students who served in or are currently serving in the U.S. military and have financial need, like recipient Zachary Butler, VCU School of Nursing Class of 2027, who hopes to become a nurse in the military. Photo: Daniel Sanjib Min (left); Photo contributed by Zachary Butler (right)
Nursing Scholarship Supports Those Who Serve
By Zaynah Qutubuddin
In the late 1960s, Harriet Buss sold a pint of her blood for $25 to the blood bank.
“And that’s how I bought my Christmas presents in my first year of college,” Buss said with a laugh. “It’s just one of those things you remember.”
An out-of-state student at the VCU School of Nursing from rural Orange County, N.C., her tuition was almost double that of her fellow in-state classmates in Richmond.
By the time she graduated with her nursing degree in 1969, Buss had worked as a nursing assistant, staffed the front desk at the recently built Cabaniss Hall dormitory, babysat for community members, and ran her dorm’s laundry service with her roommate. She also had signed up for the U.S. Army’s student nurse program in her senior year, which paid for a year of tuition.
“I don’t remember there being many scholarships to apply for when I was in school, so I worked a lot of odd jobs to supplement,” said Buss, who retired from nursing in 2008. “I know first-hand that it’s expensive to go to school, which is why I wanted to create a scholarship.”
Named in honor of three generations of nurses in her family, including her mother, daughter, and son-in-law, the Browning Walker Buss Bowlin Scholarship at the VCU School of Nursing supports students who served in or are currently serving in the U.S. military and need financial aid.
Fifty-eight years after her graduation, Buss’ scrappy tenacity is mirrored by the Class of 2027’s Zachary Butler, who received the Browning Walker Buss Bowlin Scholarship.
A guy in nursing, especially a military guy in nursing? It didn’t sound right.
Zachary Butler, Class of 2027, VCU School of Nursing
During his freshman year at VCU, in addition to being a full-time student living on campus, Butler worked almost 40 hours a week at Panda Express, earned his barber license and enrolled in VCU’s ROTC program.
Butler travels to Richmond from Fredericksburg twice each week, making reliable transportation an essential need. With scholarships supporting his tuition, he has thankfully been able to afford his own car to make the commute.
“How hasn’t the scholarship made my education possible?” Butler said. “I have transportation and can get to clinicals on time. I’m able to eat a nice lunch and not have to worry about my phone or water bill. What hasn’t it done?”
FINDING HIS PATH TO NURSING
When contemplating his future career path as a teenager, Butler was convinced nursing was not the right profession for him.
“A guy in nursing, especially a military guy in nursing?” he said. “It didn’t sound right.”
But his checklist for the ideal career kept aligning with combining nursing and military service. He wanted to care for people, talk to them on a daily basis, be involved in the community, work in a self-paced environment and meet interesting people.
One Thanksgiving, when speaking with his best friend’s aunt, a nurse, about her career, Butler found himself diving deeper into everything he could about the field.
“She told me how nursing could open many doors for me, so I kept researching and researching, and everything kept coming back to nursing,” said Butler, a self-proclaimed overthinker. “I even started seeing CRNA [Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist] TikToks pop up on my algorithm!”
Even the need for an adrenaline rush that Butler desired in a career could be satisfied, he said, by working in the emergency department or as a nurse practitioner working with special operations forces.
But still, the singular thought lingered in the back of his mind: An Army man in nursing? Can I do it?
Butler said it was ultimately support from his parents that guided him to switch his major from biology to nursing as a freshman in college. His father, a U.S. Navy veteran, had Butler create two goal cards to look at every morning on his desk. One of the cards read: To be a CRNA working with Navy SEALs.
His mother “sat there and prayed with me. And the next morning, I woke up and had a feeling in my heart that this was it. I saw the goal and said to myself, ‘Yeah, I really want to do this’,” said Butler.
INSPIRED BY THE PAST
Growing up, Buss had been encouraged by her parents to pursue her education. Her mother studied nursing. Her father, a product of the Great Depression, attended North Carolina State University.
He was later diagnosed with glioblastoma, a fast-growing, aggressive brain cancer, and was cared for at home by his wife.
“She was a great role model in all respects. I think of my mother as the original hospice nurse, before hospice was even a thing,” said Buss, who often assisted her mother in taking care of her ailing father.
He died when Buss was 11, but not before leaving his three daughters with a wellspring of inspiration.
“My father always wanted us to be sure we finished college,” Buss said. “He set that expectation for us, so then we had a goal we knew we needed to accomplish.”
She never considered school in Richmond until receiving a brochure in the mail for the Medical College of Virginia, where she later learned her great-uncle had become a dentist.
She applied. She interviewed. She was accepted. And she spent the next 40 years as a nurse, including 30 of those in the U.S. Army.
When I was in school, I needed financial assistance so that’s why I started the scholarship: To give students support and let them know there’s somebody out there rooting for them.
Harriet Buss, alum, VCU School of Nursing
Buss just wanted to see the world, and joining the military was her ticket.
She served at Fort Riley, Kansas and Fort Eustis, Virginia. Following active duty, she was in the U.S. Army Reserves. Her reserve unit was activated during Operation Desert Storm to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Buss later worked in medical-surgical nursing and as a staff nurse, was a clinical instructor, earned her master’s degree, took a cardiovascular nursing specialist course and went into nursing administration.
“That’s one thing I love about nursing,” Buss said. “I would get the seven-year itch, and in the nursing field, there’s always opportunities to try different areas.”
Her journey has been fulfilling, and Buss agrees that it was her education that gave her a solid launching ground. It also inspired her to now give back to where it all started.
“I received a good education and was able to make my way. And there’s a point in time when, if you can afford to give back, you do,” Buss said. “When I was in school, I needed financial assistance so that’s why I started the scholarship: To give students support and let them know there’s somebody out there rooting for them.”
LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE
Butler is in his final year of school. In addition to the Buss Scholarship, he received a Conway Scholarship at the School of Nursing. “Thanks to the scholarships, I was able to enjoy college and didn’t have to worry about picking up an extra shift.”
A dedicated runner, Butler was also able to purchase a new pair of running shoes.
“It doesn’t seem like a lot,” he said, “but the old ones had holes in the big toes. You run a lot in the military, and I really needed new shoes.”
Butler is ambitious about his future, running toward it with yet another checklist he is sure to complete. He wants to be a family nurse practitioner, a psych nurse practitioner and, of course, the ultimate item on his goal card: a CRNA for the Navy SEALs.
“None of this would be possible without the scholarship,” he said.
If you would like to support student scholarships at the VCU School of Nursing, please contact Jess Sorensen, the school’s senior director of development, at 804-615-5877 or jlsorensen@vcu.edu.
