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Lauralee S. Krabill Obituary

Brought to you by Groff Funeral Home

Lauralee S. Krabill

Sandusky, OH

April 1, 1954 - June 29, 2021

Lauralee S. Krabill Obituary

Lauralee S. Krabill was taken to her heavenly resting place to be with her Lord and Creator at about 9:00pm on Tuesday evening June 29, 2021, surrounded by her family. Lauralee was born to Charles and Roberta Sachs on April 1, 1954 in Columbus, Ohio. She grew up in Columbus, attending Walnut Ridge High School. At age 18 her parents moved to Dogwood Lakes and she moved to Zanesville to attend nursing school at Good Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing. Upon graduation in 1975 she returned to Columbus where she began her career in nursing at Riverside Methodist Hospital on a combined orthopedic floor. It was at Riverside where she met and received her first Rose Bowl rose from the great Woody Hayes, then head coach for The Ohio State Buckeyes. She was always fond of those times as she provided care to OSU football players who had joint reconstructions. As the story goes, if Woody’s players thought they had too much pain to do their rehab exercises, the nurses were to treat them like babies and feed them baby food. That usually got them to do their exercises. It was during her first year at Riverside that Lauralee was introduced to her husband Jeff on a blind lunch date arranged by their good friends Steve and Jan Garlock. Jeff loves to recount that he fell in love with her at first site at that lunch and knew they would marry. In fact, Jeff proposed two months later and they did marry four months after that on June 19, 1976 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, across from the state Capitol building. Their wedding was one of four successive generations wedded at Trinity, including the most recent for daughter Leeanna. When Lauralee and Jeff moved to Sandusky in 1978, Lauralee became an operating room nurse at Providence Hospital. She was very committed to her profession and joined AORN (Association of Operating Room Nurses), serving locally in multiple officer roles and also serving at the national level as a Regional Delegate. She continued her affiliation with AORN throughout her career. After several years in the OR, Lauralee joined the staff of the Providence Hospital School of Nursing, teaching her operating room skills to a generation of nurses. Over the years she had the opportunity to see so many of those students, now nurses working in their professions, and it was something in which she took great pride. In 2000 after many years at Providence, Lauralee was hired by a group of local surgeons to stand up the Northern Ohio Surgical Center on Hayes Avenue. Working with the Board, she oversaw the construction, hiring of staff, creation of policies, negotiation of insurance contracts and the day-to-day operations of NOSC. Her efforts culminated in NOSC being named one of the Top 10 free standing surgery centers in the United States. Also notable, the NOSC also had a perfect score on their national Joint Commission survey, something almost unheard of. But her career would soon provide new challenges. It was during Lauralee’s tenure at NOSC that she was first diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. She turned what was obviously a personal challenge into a calling. She became active in the Komen Race for the Cure. Lauralee’s sister, Birdie Brennan, also became active with the Columbus Chapter of Komen and as a family walked in multiple, annual fundraising events. Lauralee and Jeff attended many national forums on breast cancer, focusing their efforts on metastatic disease as it had the least research and institutional attention. Working together with the then North Coast Cancer Center, Lauralee and Jeff stood up several regional Breast Cancer Conferences, all held at the new Kalahari Conference Center. Lauralee’s commitment to serving other breast cancer survivors extended to counseling women worldwide through Y-ME, and a Cleveland Clinic programs including Scotty Hamilton. In 2005 Lauralee was approached by the Sandusky City Schools. They wanted to bring back a Licensed Practical Nursing program to the Sandusky Career Center and choose Lauralee to write the program, get it approved by the Ohio Board of Nursing, hire the staff, set the curriculum and establish all of the policies and procedures. She was given a year to do this, but got it done in 10 months which gave the program the opportunity to recruit a top notch incoming first class of students. Lauralee was subsequently given responsibility for the Medical Assisting program and a Pharmacy Tech program. Through her efforts, many of her LPN classes had 100% passage rates on the NCLEX state board exams. In 2017 Lauralee saw the need for further education for practicing LPN’s to get their RN license. Working with the SCS administrative team, Lauralee was tasked with standing up an LPN-to-RN program. She knew that licensing standards would require hiring a new director for that program and in fact had anticipated this for many years. She recruited Elizabeth Sartor Moots for that roll. She considered it one of her best decisions. It was during Lauralee’s time with the LPN program that she became interested in doing still more for the profession of nursing. This eventually led her to being appointed by Governor Kasich to the Ohio Board of Nursing in 2015. Beginning in 2020 Lauralee was elected by her OBN peers to be their President, a post she served in until her passing. Above all else, Lauralee was proudest of her family. She attended every event her children had in the Sandusky City Schools, as well as their college and adult lives. She enjoyed watching her grandchildren in all of their varied activities and reveled in the family’s annual “Deer Creek” retreats. Lauralee is survived by her loving husband, Jeff; her son, Jonathan (April) and her daughter, Leeanna (Sean), and grandchildren, Jackson Krabill, Jarrett Krabill, Grayson Krabill, McKenlee Gardner and Annabel Gardner, as well as her mother-in-law, Phyllis Krabill. She also leaves behind her sister and brother-in-law, Birdie and John Brennan, niece, Lindsay Brennan, Niece Mallory Chafins, and great-niece. Maddyn Chafins; her sister-in-law. Jane Todd and husband, Hamilton and niece, Megan Todd; her sister-in-law, Barb Sachs, niece, Samantha and nephew, Matthew. Also grieving are many longtime friends, cousins and professional colleagues, too numerous to mention. Lauralee was preceded in death by her parents, Charles and Roberta Sachs, her brother, Phil Sachs; and her father-in-law, Roger Krabill. Visiting hours will be at Groff Funeral Home (1607 E Perkins Avenue) from 5-9pm on Friday July 2nd. Those attending are encouraged to wear something pink in honor of Lauralee’s commitment to a cure for breast cancer. Private services will be scheduled separately. Contributions in Lauralee’s memory can be made to the Sandusky Education Foundation (135 E Washington Row), an organization founded by Jeff and Lauralee to benefit the schools and children of Sandusky, or Cancer Services (505 E Perkins Avenue).

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Event information can be found on the Official Obituary of Lauralee S. Krabill.