Cox College Alumni Center will be named for Jackie Hoff

The new Cox College Alumni Center in Springfield will be named for Ozark County native Jackie Robbins Hoff when it’s created in the near future as the college undergoes a major renovation.

Earlier this year, the college opened an “Alumni Room Raffle,” offering participants an opportunity to have the new alumni center named for them if their winning ticket was drawn during the annual Alumni Dinner, which was held Sept. 22. Tickets were $30 each, $50 for two or $100 for eight.

Jackie, a 1956 graduate of Burge School of Nursing, which became Cox College, attended the dinner with her daughter-in-law, Mary Hoff, a 1986 graduate. When the winning raffle ticket was drawn, Mary’s name was announced. Jackie hadn’t bought any tickets, but Mary had.

“Bless her heart, she went up to the stage with tears running down her cheeks and said, ‘I know the perfect person for this. Jackie Hoff is more deserving than I am,’” Jackie recalled Monday. “It was wonderful. I had tears. The president of the college was in tears. The new center will have my name on it – there will be a plaque. It was such a wonderful thing for Mary to do.”

The alumni center is being made possible by the Cox Health Foundation. 

Jackie attended the Burge School of Nursing after graduating from Gainesville High School in 1953. Her graduation from the three-year nursing program in 1956 was the beginning of a career than continued for 49 1/2 years. In addition to the nursing degree from Burge School of Nursing, she also earned a Bachelor of Science Degree from what is now Drury University. 

After graduating, she worked for 10 years in Oakland, California, where she met her husband, Gaines. They were married in 1961. She also worked in Wichita, Kansas, and in St. Louis before returning to Burge as a clinical instructor. 

After several years there, the Hoffs moved back to Gainesville, and Jackie worked as a nursing supervisor at Baxter Regional Medical Center in Mountain Home, Arkansas, for 15 years and then taught “pre-op nursing,” helping patients prepare for surgery and learn to take care of themselves during recovery.

The Hoffs have three adult children, Brian Hoff, Alica Rutherford and Kim Uchtman, who now have families of their own. Jackie and Gaines moved to Mountain Home a few years ago to be closer to medical facilities.