Leading NWMRMC to a positive future Photography by Austin Britt It was while working at a grocery store in Brandon, Mississippi that Lorie Till decided to enter the medical field, thus starting a trajectory that has led her to become the Executive Officer of Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in Clarksdale. “Firefighters and EMTs would come in all the time, to the old Jitney Jungle off of Spillway Road, and tell me that I should do volunteer work in their field,” she recalls. “One day when I was leaving work, there was a wreck right in front of the store. A man had been hit by a motorcycle and, when I saw him, I immediately ran to his aid. Raised as a good Catholic, I knelt down beside him, took his hand and began praying. He was in a lot of pain, but we talked and he didn’t want me to leave until the ambulance arrived. He even wanted me to get in with him, which I was allowed to do, and went with him to the hospital.” The EMTs drove her back to the Reservoir fire station where Ann Jackson, a well-known medical profession in the state now, was at that time, the lead nurse for the Reservoir Fire Department. “We ended up becoming very close and that led me to eventually take an EMT course which was my initial foray into healthcare.” Till became a volunteer with that fire department and future governor, Phil Bryant, was her driver at one time. She stayed on as a volunteer even during her time in college. “I had wanted to go into accounting or become a lawyer,” laughs Till. “But that fateful day outside of the grocery store changed all of that time forever. Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where both her parents hailed from, Till’s father was always transferring due to his job with Farm Bureau Insurance. He eventually became Vice President of Casualty which prompted the family to move to Brandon, Mississippi during Till’s junior year in junior high at Northwest Rankin where she eventually graduated. Her mother was a professional bookkeeper and Till was the middle child of