Dixie Carol Heim

Services for Dixie Carol Sharp Heim, 67, Lawrence, will be at 2 p.m. Friday at Rumsey-Yost Funeral Home. Entombment will follow at Memorial Park Cemetery Mausoleum.Mrs. Heim died Monday, Nov. 27, 2006, at her home.She was born Feb. 28, 1938. She was adopted by Ralph and Maurine Stultz and raised in Bonner Springs. She graduated from Bonner Springs High School in 1956 and St. Luke’s School of Nursing in 1959. She graduated from the nurse clinician program at Wichita State University in 1974 and received her Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner certificate in 1980.Mrs. Heim worked at Lawrence Memorial Hospital as an ER supervisor and operating room director and was part of starting the first acute care ward with three beds on a sunporch. She worked with various physicians in Lawrence, including Dr. Robert Hughes and Dr. Dean Bray. She was instrumental in starting Health Care Access in Lawrence, in which she provided care for the uninsured. She was a house supervisor at St. Francis Hospital in Topeka from 1981 to 1994. She also worked in several rural clinics as a midlevel provider and eventually retired after working with Dr. Robert Jacoby in Topeka. She was a preceptor for the Kansas University School of Nursing. She received the 1970 Outstanding Young Woman of America award and in 1994 was a recipient of the KU Heart of Healthcare Award. She loved to read, plant things, play with her grandchildren and travel to Branson, Mo.Survivors include her husband, Ben Heim, of the home; two sons, Bryan Sharp, Tucson, Ariz., and Andrew Sharp, Phoenix; a daughter, Diane Wilkins, Topeka; and 12 grandchildren, Stephanie, Mark, Dixie, Mikayla, Cassandra, Kyle, Sarah, Mykenna, Hailey, Keane, Caliope and Madison.The family will receive friends from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home.The family suggests memorials to Health Care Access, sent in care of the funeral home.Online condolences may be left at www.rumsey-yost.com.