Family: Husband, Jamie; son, Clayton, 12; and daughter, Makenna, 9
Hometown: Mountain Grove, Mo.
In Town: MarLisa is a busy pediatric nurse practitioner and has been at the Mercy Clinic Family Practice of Mountain Grove, Mo., for almost two years.
Prior to working at the Mountain Grove clinic, she worked for more than 13 years at the neonatal intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Mo. Originally from North Carolina, she moved to the Ozarks with her family when she was a child and graduated from Mountain Grove High School. Her husband, Jamie, is a lifelong Mountain Grove resident.
“Working in the clinic here in Wright County gives me an opportunity to treat kids I know as well as some I don’t,” MarLisa explained recently while sitting in her office between patient visits. “In this community, I treat everything from acute conditions like ear infections to more chronic patients, such as those who have Downs Syndrome and Type 1 diabetes. To me, it is a real blessing to work where I live and treat my own community’s children.”
In the Country: “Life on the farm has its ups and downs,” MarLisa said.
“We own 80 acres in Texas County and lease 300 acres from the farm beside ours. We raise commercial beef cattle, and have about 40 head which we sell at the sale barn. We do spring calving and I love the fact that we are raising our own beef. Growing up on the farm is such an opportunity for our kids to learn about responsibility. It is the best atmosphere to raise children. I love the freedom and that the kids have room to run and play.
“It is so wonderful to sit on the back porch and see deer or turkey. It is not so wonderful to go to the front porch and see cows there, when they have gotten outside the fence. Still, my family knows home and the farm is where I go to relax. For some people, their happy place is a vacation or the beach but for me, it’s sitting on the back porch, watching the sun go down.”
