A Hutchinson couple is among this year’s inductees into the National Blood Donation Hall of Fame after a more than 30-year stint of donating whole blood and platelets around the country.
Staff from the South Central and Southeast Kansas American Red Cross nominated 88-year-old Jim Parker and 77-year-old Linda Parker for their work educating people about the importance of blood donation, as well as the Parkers’ own dedication to being life-long blood donors.
Fresenius Kabi — the global healthcare company that manufactures much of the medical technology used in blood donations and the sponsors of the Hall of Fame — got in touch with the Parkers last month and let them know they were part of this year’s 14-person class of honorees.
“I am humbled, because what we do is so easy to do,” Linda Parker said. “It's so easy to make blood, and it's so easy to donate. ... It’s just kind of humbling to think that you would be rewarded for something that should be done.”
To mark the occasion, the Parkers made a platelet donation appointment at the American Red Cross in downtown Wichita for the day of their induction. During that appointment, Jim Parker reached the 102-gallon mark, and Linda Parker reached 92 gallons.
“Their personal donation milestones are nothing short of remarkable,” said Shannon Wedge, executive director of the South Central and Southeastern Kansas Red Cross.
“These donations represent thousands of patients whose lives have been touched by your generosity, and your story reminds us of why blood donations matter,” Wedge told the Parkers during an induction ceremony.
Jim and Linda Parker’s donations started by chance.
In 1976, Jim Parker was the new principal of Conway Springs High School. He said the bloodmobile visited the Sumner County community, about 45 minutes southwest of Wichita, only once a year. Students in the senior class came to the young principal with a challenge.
“They said, 'If at least half of the senior class would donate, will you donate?’” Jim Parker said. “And being the principal, the leader of the student body, I had to encourage them to do good things. So I agreed.”
It was Jim Parker’s first time donating blood.
“Blood donating was not part of my world,” he said. “I knew out there somewhere there were people who did it, but no one I ever knew did.”
“I was apprehensive,” he added, “and when they stuck the needle in, it did hurt. But it went well.”
He said he donated the following year, and the one after that. He donated as he was promoted to the Conway Springs superintendent and continued to donate as a job change brought him to Wichita.
With that move, Jim Parker made his first visit to the American Red Cross donation center in downtown Wichita. He saw the center’s “Wall of Giving,” which celebrates donors who give large amounts of blood. At the time, people who donated 13 gallons or more had their names added to the wall.
Jim Parker knew he wanted to be on that wall and stepped up his donations.
Jim and Linda Parker met in the early 1990s, when they both worked at the same school. Linda Parker knew right away that loving Jim Parker would mean she’d need to start donating as well.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Linda Parker said with a laugh. “It was, ‘Did I want him in my life that much?’ And I absolutely did because when I first saw him, I said ‘That’s him. That’s for me.’”
The couple married in 1991 and started booking their blood donation appointments together at the Wichita donation center.
Logan Wright of the Red Cross said the Parkers are in a class by themselves.
A blood transfusion happens about every two seconds in the United States. That’s blood that’s regularly used for neonatal, prenatal, cancer and trauma patients — and anyone in between. Donations made at the Wichita center are transported by thousands of volunteers to about 100 hospitals and cancer centers throughout the state.
Wright said the never-ending need for whole blood, red blood cells, plasma and platelets is met by high frequency donors or “super donors” like the Parkers.
“Blood cannot be manufactured; it cannot be stored for very long,” Wright said. “This is literally a life-saving donation.”
In 2004, Jim Parker retired from his career as a school administrator and educator. Having seen to it that he and his wife made their way on to the wall of giving, Jim Parker wanted to set a new goal — one that would help raise awareness about the need for new donors. He told his wife he wanted to become the first couple to donate blood at all 34 of the American Red Cross donation centers.
“I said ‘sure,’ not realizing he was really meaning it,” Linda Parker said. “[Then] he started getting the maps out and started asking at the Red Cross what to do and how to do it.”
The couple added the words “donate across America” to their white minivan. They called the donation centers, letting them know they were on their way and trying to encourage people to donate. The trips were made for weekends and school breaks while Linda Parker was still working.
“It became kind of an addiction to us,” Jim Parker said. “Get up, drive, make a donation, come back…., load up, and go out again.”
Over the course of four years, the Parkers hit all the Red Cross donation centers and then every state in the nation.
The last stop was Hawaii, where they used Linda Parker’s Thanksgiving break to donate at Tripler Air Force Base — in honor of Linda’s son who is in the military.
The staff at the base’s Armed Services Blood Program reached out to the Parkers to ask why a couple from Kansas was donating blood in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When they heard about the Parkers’ travels, they invited the couple to do a similar tour of the 19 ASBP donation sites in the continental U.S., starting with the Pentagon.
Wedge said that for all of the Parkers’ travels, “every two weeks they faithfully returned home to Wichita to donate at this local Red Cross.”
Jim Parker said what brings them back is the staff at the center.
“There's many people who are involved in donating blood or blood platelets, and it's not the person who comes in and gives — that’s just a minor part of the whole process,” Jim Parker said.
“We may be honored and inducted in, but all those people are going in with us and no man is an island … We are all part of a whole.”
