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REIDSVILLE — When Susan Fitzgibbon Shumaker was named president and CEO of Annie Penn Hospital in 1990, the facility had 152 beds, 42 of which were nursing home beds, and about 500 employees.

Now, Annie Penn is a part of the Moses Cone Health System, and Shumaker has accepted the job of president of the Moses Cone-Wesley Long Community Health Foundation.

Annie Penn now has 110 acute care and 92 nursing home beds and about 450 employees. It offers services through the expanded Moses Cone Health System, which boasts more than 7,000 employees.

Shumaker says she “grew up” at Annie Penn.

 During her tenure, she oversaw the merger process in 2001 in which Annie Penn became a part of the Moses Cone system.

“I am very proud that we were able to set up the Annie Penn Community Trust, which is now the Reidsville Area Trust Foundation, which was funded with $28 million worth of merger proceeds,” Shumaker said. “The foundation gives away 5 percent of our assets every year, so it has been a very significant investment in the Reidsville and Rockingham County community.

“I am very proud we have that legacy that will continue to benefit the community.

 Shumaker said that in the past eight years, Moses Cone Health System has invested almost $40 million on the Annie Penn campus.

 “We have strengthened the clinical services and facilities of the hospital,” she said.

“The $7 million-plus emergency room we opened a year ago is a beautiful facility. Our patient satisfaction has gone up significantly, and the turnaround time has decreased since we have gotten that opened and added staffing.”

Shumaker, a native of Charlotte, attended Duke University, receiving a bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1981 and a master’s degree in health administration in 1984.

A week after graduation, Shumaker accepted a position as assistant administrator at Annie Penn with responsibilities for hospital operations . The next year, she worked to have nursing home beds added to Annie Penn, opening the skilled nursing facility in 1986 .

Now, a $5 million building houses the patients in the skilled nursing unit.

“I was very proud of the new facility because we had always had a wonderful staff, but our facilities were outdated and were in an older part of the hospital. This is a larger, much brighter, more uplifting space for our nursing care patients.”

She is married to Brad Shumaker, a Winston-Salem native who is chief financial officer of the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro. They have a son, Hutch Wheless, 21, a student at Rockingham Community College, and a daughter, Whitley Shumaker, 20, a student at Appalachian State. A Reidsville resident for now, she and her husband plan to move to Greensboro in the near future.

On Sept. 25, the hospital honored Shumaker with a reception, where she received a proclamation from the city of Reidsville presented by Mayor James Festerman.

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