Coats of Many Colors

Photography by James Moore

Local couple spends personal, professional lives serving others

Dr. Stephen and Betty Coats cracked the code on life’s meaning long ago, spending their adult lives serving others both professionally and personally. 

Both came from small towns where the ethos of hard work and looking out for one’s neighbor were instilled early. Both went into health care — he as a physician, she as a nurse — in the belief the highest calling was to ease another’s suffering. And both were tireless in their community service in support of their adopted hometown and those less fortunate than themselves. 

Neither of them likes to take much credit for all of that, preferring instead to be the other’s best and most steadfast cheerleader. 

“My wife wears many hats,” Stephen said. “She’s an excellent cook. She’s a great mother. She’s raised our children, and I can’t take much credit for that. I can’t say too many good things about my wife.”

“I want to add that he was a terrific father and took care of his responsibilities,” Betty countered. “We had six children to raise and educate. I was only able to juggle family and a career because God gave me a lot of patience, and I had a lot of support from my husband.”

Stephen arrived in Missouri from his native Ohio and attended medical school at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. Betty, who grew up in Troy, Missouri, completed her nurses training at Kirksville State Teachers College, now Truman University. The two were married, and after Stephen finished his residency, they made a beeline for West Plains, setting down roots that have held them resolute in good times and bad. 

“When I came here, there were only about six physicians that were pretty much standard in the hospital,” Stephen said. “Now, I don’t know what the number is today, but it’s much, much greater. Maybe closer to 100.

“When I came here, it (Ozark) was about a 40-bed hospital, a glorified nursing home, really. And now it’s a major medical center for the region. They’re bringing people in from all over the country to work here, specialists and nurses. It’s amazing how much this place has grown.”

While admitting he wasn’t wired to sit on committees, Stephen lent his leadership and guidance to that growth, serving several such bodies in his career.

“Every hospital has to have multiple committees, and I served on about all of them at one time or another,” he said. “Committees were not my thing, however. They took up a lot of time, and with a busy office and busy surgery schedule and emergencies in the E.R., committees were kind of a thorn in my side, frankly.”

Instead, the couple preferred devoting what scant spare time there was to making a more immediate and tangible impact on others. 

“We have been on many mission trips through our church,” said Betty, an RN by training. “We’ve been to Guatemala, we’ve been to Jamaica three times, we’ve been to Mexico and Haiti. All of them were very interesting clinics. We took care of thousands of patients.”

Back home, they were equally passionate about volunteering in various capacities.

“We’ve been volunteering with Whetstone Boys Ranch now for 10 years,” Stephen said. “It’s a religious ranch designed to turn young boys around. Now, we’re not talking about hardened criminals here; we’re talking about anger management, family problems, they don’t get along with their parents, they don’t do well in school. We try to teach them some of the basics of gardening. That’s been very satisfying.

“The Boy Scouts has been very satisfying as well. I was a High Adventure program manager for quite a few years. We took the Boy Scouts all throughout the United States and Canada. Those were always great adventures.”

Betty and Stephen, now 79 and 82 respectively, today live the life of retirees, tending fruit trees on their acreage and reveling in their children and grandchildren. The hospital they served is flourishing, and the town they love is better for their being here — especially after they spearheaded the effort to get a full-time fire department established. It’s all gone so fast, yet every day brings the same measure of joy.

“My biggest pride is all the patients I’ve taken care of who have done well,” Stephen said. “I have people come up to me who show me their scars. We were donating our time to give COVID shots a while back and a woman comes up to me, pulls up her blouse and shows me this big scar from her gall bladder surgery I did back in the early ’70s. She said, ‘You remember that?’ I said, ‘No, not really.’”

They share a laugh, then Betty gets the last word. 

“I’ve been very proud of this community and our hospital,” she said. “The hospital has always been very friendly and knowledgeable and devoted extra pride in the care they give their patients. West Plains is a phenomenal place to live with all the work that’s been done in our community by our boards, our teaching staff, all those who volunteer and administer to our citizens here. It gives you such a wonderful feeling to see all that. When people ask us where we’re from, we’re proud to say, ‘We’re from West Plains.’”