Barbara Pickett

Barbara Pickett, the first Appomattox County School Nurse

(Over the last several weeks, the Times Virginian has featured installments of an article written by Barbara Pickett, who in 1967 became the first official school nurse at Appomattox County Public Schools. An article about Pickett’s views on the COVID-19 pandemic and advances in medicine first appeared in the July 1 edition. Today, Pickett discusses, in her own words, speech defects and communicable diseases during her time as school nurse.)

Speech Defects

This was only the beginning of health needs to be met. It was unreal, the number of children with speech defects, such that, by 12 years old one Carver-Price student, though she tried, her speech was nearly unintelligible. Speech therapy was arranged for her through a therapist in Lynchburg, Jane C. Johnson, and before the year was up the child approached me in the hallway and slowly, but in much improved speech, thanked me for getting her help.

The teachers were wonderful to refer problems to me, and I tried my best to get a solution to each. Some other individual arrangements were made but school funding was limited. By March of 1968, Appomattox County Schools Superintendent Earl Smith had arranged for a team of clinicians to visit the county from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for speech and hearing evaluations. Letters for permission for the evaluations and pre-evaluation such as birth, development, health, education, environmental, speech, hearing and other pertinent history was sought from parents. Those who were able were asked to pick their children up from the testing center so that 10 extra children could be seen that day after the buses departed.

There’s more to this story in the current issue of the Times Virginian newspaper. Pick up a copy or subscribe at to view the full article in the e-edition version.

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