December 6, 2025 / Pike County News / By Stan Schwartz
It’s a conversation that needs to happen
“Quality over quantity is kind of our general term here,” said Tracy Brookshier, marketing manager for the Pike County Health Department Home Health and Hospice. She said she knows that for some it’s a difficult topic to broach, but it needs to be done.
“We want people to be comfortable with it. We want people to ask questions. It’s not always a bad thing. I think the end of life deserves as much beauty and dignity as it can get. And I really believe that wholeheartedly,” Millinder added.
Brookshier asked Kelsey Millinder to speak on this topic during last week’s Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce meeting.
PCHD is non-profit through its foundation, and the foundation is made up of volunteers who are from the community.
“That foundation helps us go above and beyond what our staff already does,” she said. “Things as small as getting a case of soda, because so-and-so likes Sundrop.”
Because PCHD is a small, local agency it can help the people in the community, she noted. The board is behind their hospice program 100%, she added.
“We have several different disciplines that make up the care we provide,” Millinder said. “We have nurses and aides, of course, that come to home visits or facility visits, wherever the need is. We have a chaplain—Cole Bransteter is our chaplain of hospice. He’s full-time at Church of the Nazarene. Danny, she is our social worker, and then we have volunteers. We’re always looking for volunteers.
“If you know anyone who would like to come onto your campus, especially, you know, that they have a place in their heart for hospice and in-flight care. And it’s as simple as going and sitting for 15 minutes. Some of the nursing home residents really enjoy just having somebody just stop and visit, check in on them, bring their Sundrop, and bring their chips, that kind of thing. You get to kind of be the nonsense visitor. Everybody else is there for business, and you just get to come visit and shoot the breeze and get to know them.”
“And there’s no dedicated amount of time that you have to do,” Brookshier added. “You can sign up to be a hospice volunteer and do two hours a year or something if you really wanted to. It’s kind of based around you and then what the family needs.”
Pike County Hospice is one of only four county-based hospice programs in the state of Missouri. It’s governed by people of the county, elected individuals.
Bowling Green Mayor Jim Arico thanked Bookshier and Millinder for the hospice service they provide.
“You all took care of my dad in the last stages of his life. It was really a blessing to us. You rescued us from the 24-hour situations that we had at the end. It was a day-by-day situation, and it was just really a blessing to us to overcome the horrifying, more than horrifying, residency,” he said.
“Unfortunately, most of us have needed it, professionally and personally,” Brookshier added.
They offer (end-of-life planning) workshops and information packets on what hospice is, who qualifies, etc. that can be picked up at our office at any time free of charge.
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Kelsey Millinder, RN BSN was recently promoted to Home Health & Hospice Director. Previously, Carolyn Orf, RN was in this position until her promotion into Agency Administrator after Rhonda Stumbaugh’s retirement.
