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your homegrown newspaper March 29, 2023
Vol. 19, No. 28
Children pg. 6
FILE PHOTO
Climate pg. 16
St. Luke celebrates seven decades of serving community By Taylor Davison / Valley Journal
History pg. 22
RONAN — St. Luke Community Healthcare celebrated 70 years this month, a landmark for the community-owned healthcare organization. Opened in March of 1953, St. Luke Hospital was built by Mission Valley residents from the ground up. “I think the community came together back in the late ‘40s and they realized they
wanted to have a healthcare entity that was community owned and operated and not part of a big system or anything else, just really an organization that was dedicated solely to this community,” St. Luke CEO Steve Todd explained. “So, the community came together and fundraised and literally brought hammer and shovel in hand to build the organization.” Todd has an old photo he said
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he likes to show at employee orientations of volunteers from the Future Farmers of America (FFA) chapter of Ronan working to develop the grounds of the hospital. “It’s just a great reminder of what this community did to help get it going,” Todd commented. Community-owned since its inception, the organization has seen a lot of growth over the years to meet the needs of
the local community. In Todd’s nearly 25 years on the job, there’s been the $28 million expansion of the new hospital facility that added around 60,000 square feet and remodeled the existing 30,000 square feet in 2008. The Ronan clinic was constructed and finished in 2001, the Ridgewater and Southshore clinics were built in Polson, and the oncology center was added to
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