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EDEN — Mike McDaniel has long wanted to go into the medical field. It took him nearly 40 years, but today McDaniel is living that dream — as a respiratory therapist at Annie Penn Hospital in Reidsville.

It was while attending Rockingham Community College in 1972 that Mike made up his mind to go to medical school. After applying at two schools and not being accepted, McDaniel enrolled in zoology at N.C. State, still hoping one day to enter medicine.

After graduating in 1974 — the year State won the national basketball championship, he proudly says — McDaniel was offered a job as a sanitarian at the Rockingham County Health Department.

His job involved grading restaurants and meat markets, doing soil evaluations for septic tanks, checking reports of rabies and communicable diseases and “all of that stuff,” he said.

Not long after taking his new job, McDaniel met Janice Rea of Eden and fell in love, he said. Their marriage put McDaniel’s plans for med school on hold once again.

Eventually, the Leaksville (now a part of Eden) native was named environmental health supervisor.

After 15 years with the Health Department, McDaniel was transferred into County Manager Hugh Griffin’s office.

“The county was looking at doing a lot of things with recycling and solid waste back in the ’80s,” McDaniel said about the change.

In his new capacity, he was doing environmental engineering work with solid waste, landfills, recycling and water and sewer projects, and his duties expanded to include county buildings and building projects.

Soon, he was named director of environmental and engineering services for the county.

During his 30-year career, McDaniel, a 1970 Morehead High School graduate, worked under five different county managers.

He said he feels his biggest accomplishment was the installation of the lined landfill.

“We started the whole thing,” he said of the landfill project still in use today.

McDaniel also was involved in the county’s water and sewer projects.

“We extended a sewer line from the city of Eden all the way to Wentworth and extended water lines out U.S. 220 and from the city of Reidsville to Wentworth,” he said.

As he began thinking about retiring from the county, McDaniel said he and Janice were considering other earning opportunities for him.

“We thought about it and prayed about, and I was still interested in doing something in the medical field,” McDaniel said. “The community college is still one of the best resources we have, and I started researching nursing or respiratory therapy there.”

About a year before his retirement, McDaniel talked with Tom Harding, RCC’s director of respiratory therapy, and “he told me what I needed to do.

“I applied for the program for the following year (2004), which was going to be the year I retired, and got accepted,” McDaniel said.

“It was fun,” McDaniel said. “I didn’t have to take as much course work as somebody just starting school since some of my course work from RCC and state transferred.”

Because he was mainly taking the respiratory therapy classes, McDaniel had a lot of extra time.

“I really admired the folks who were working and trying to go to school full-time. For my part, it was more fun for me than for some of those folks.”

RCC offers students the opportunity to get on-the-job training with part-time jobs. McDaniel applied at a couple of places and “was fortunate enough to get some part-time hours at Annie Penn and even a few at Morehead Hospital.”

His part-time job at Annie Penn led to a full-time position after he graduated, McDaniel said.

At last, he was in the field he had dreamed of as a student — “the closest I’ve got,” he said.

He works three 12-hour days each week with three or four staff members assigned to each shift. McDaniel’s work varies from day to day based on the patients and the kind of respiratory orders he gets.

Each morning, the respiratory staff gets a list of patients needing treatment in either the hospital or the intensive care unit.

“I like it because I am dealing with people in a lot different way than I did before,” McDaniel said.

“I feel like I can care about them and for them whereas my job with the county was more related to getting a job accomplished.”

Janice works for Karastan Mohawk in Greensboro. The couple has been married for 32 years and raised Janice’s daughter, Kris Kasten, the mother of their grandson, Kreed, 6.

Throughout their marriage, they have been members of First Presbyterian Church, where McDaniel has been a deacon and now serves as an elder.

Ann Fish is a Reidsville native who has lived in Eden since 1979. She is a retired newspaper editor and reporter. Contact her at annsomesfish@yahoo.com