52 Faces - Bette LaPenta
Like many people in the area, the military brought Bette LaPenta to Onslow County. But not in the typical way - it was her sister who was married to a Marine in Jacksonville and LaPenta was fleeing an abusive marriage in 1977.
“I ran away from home with four babies and that’s what brought me down here,” LaPenta said.
Originally from Massachusetts, LaPenta grew up a natural born caregiver, taking care of her sickly grandmother and protecting her mother whenever she had seizures from the time she was in grade school. It was her childhood dream to become a nurse, but college was too expensive. So she asked permission to join the Navy - but her father, a sailor in WWII, would not allow it.“I couldn’t go to college and I couldn’t join the Navy so I got married,” LaPenta said.
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52 Faces - Dennis Aschbrenner
When Dennis Aschbrenner retired from the Navy in 1989 as a chief hospital corpsman, he knew his civilian career would need to relate to his experience in the medical field. In the search for ways to make himself more marketable to employers, he found the associate’s degree in nursing program at Coastal Carolina Community College. For him, it was the perfect fit.
He was one of the few male students in the program - one of three - but he obtained his associate’s as a Registered Nurse and found work locally at Onslow Memorial Hospital. After a 22 year civilian career at OMH, Aschbrenner found a new use for his nursing skills - healing with the power of words rather than medicine.