For two McLeod Health Clarendon nurses, being named recipients of the 2026 Palmetto Gold Award is both a professional milestone and a deeply personal affirmation of the work they have poured into caring for patients in a small community hospital.
Tracy Ganes, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and Katie Marlowe, a labor and delivery nurse, were among eight McLeod Health nurses selected this year for the statewide recognition program, which honors excellence, leadership and compassion in nursing.
For both women, the moment they learned they had been selected was emotional — though in very different ways.
Ganes said she initially thought the email had been sent by mistake.
“I was surprised,” she said. “I thought the email wasn’t mine. I was like, ‘Wait.’ And then I emailed the woman. I was like, ‘Are you sure this came to the right person?’”
Marlowe, meanwhile, had no doubts about her reaction.
“I was sitting there at lunch and started crying,” she said.
The award recognizes 100 nurses from across South Carolina each year through a competitive blind-review process, with nominees judged on how they promote the profession, care for patients and families, and help others grow in the field.
For Marlowe, the recognition is especially meaningful because her entire nursing career has unfolded at McLeod Health Clarendon.
“It’s really rewarding,” she said. “My whole nursing career has been here at this hospital. I haven’t worked anywhere else, and so I grew from a baby nurse to what I am now. So it’s very rewarding to get that award.”
Marlowe, a Manning native, has worked at the hospital since 2011. She said nursing was not her original plan.
A self-described “nerd” in high school who loved chemistry, she once intended to become a pharmacist. But a high school softball coach encouraged her to consider a profession that better matched her personality.
“She was right,” Marlowe said. “I ended up changing my major and moved into nursing and loved it from the minute I got in it.”
Though many nursing students are advised to begin in medical-surgical care, Marlowe said she always felt drawn to women’s and children’s health. A premature baby herself who experienced cardiac issues as a child, she knew she wanted to work with babies or children. Once she completed her labor and delivery rotation, the decision was clear.
“There was no question after that,” she said. “You get to see the baby be born and take care of both mommy and baby after that.”
Today, that work gives her a unique connection to the community.
On McLeod Health Clarendon’s labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum unit, Marlowe said she often meets mothers early in pregnancy, then helps care for them through delivery and recovery. Later, she sees those families again out in town.
“We’re just such a small community,” she said. “It just is a real good full circle.”
Ganes brings decades of experience to the operating room and has been part of the McLeod system since 1998, when she was working as a CNA while still in nursing school. She has lived in Clarendon County since 2008 and said joining McLeod Health Clarendon felt like a homecoming of sorts after McLeod took over the former Clarendon Memorial Hospital.
“I like the small community,” she said. “It feels like when McLeod took over Clarendon Memorial, it was like coming back home.”
Her path into nursing was unusually specific from the start.
Ganes said she wanted to be a nurse from childhood — and not just any nurse. Long before most students choose a specialty, she had already set her sights on anesthesia.
“I found a pamphlet for anesthesia … back in elementary school,” she said. “I was like, ‘That’s what I’m gonna do.’”
She followed that goal step by step, studying at Florence-Darlington Technical College, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina, where she completed her anesthesia training.
Both nurses said the Palmetto Gold recognition reflects the parts of nursing they value most.
For Ganes, that means making patients feel seen, comfortable and cared for before and after surgery.
“I like making people feel like they’re important and that they’re here for a purpose, and we’re taking care of them,” she said.
For Marlowe, compassion is central, especially in a department where not every story ends the way families hope.
“Labor and delivery is not always sunshine and rainbows,” she said. “There’s scary times, there’s sad times, and to be able to just be there through all of it for all of our mamas is what I love most.”
Both women also emphasized that nursing is demanding work — and that anyone considering the profession should understand that before stepping into it.
“This job can be a lot more demanding than people think that it is,” Ganes said. “They don’t realize the weekends, the nights, the holidays.”
Marlowe offered similar advice, urging future nurses to think carefully about how the profession fits with their long-term family goals.
Even so, neither has lost sight of what keeps them going.
“There’s not ever a day in nursing that you can’t learn,” Marlowe said.
Ganes, who has been nursing since 1999, said the motivation is simple: “Wanting to be better at what you do.”
For McLeod Health Clarendon, the recognition carries added weight. As a rural hospital within the larger McLeod Health system, being home to two Palmetto Gold recipients underscores the level of care and professionalism found in a smaller community setting.
“McLeod’s a big umbrella, and we’re a small part of that umbrella,” Marlowe said. “To be recognized from the small hospital means a lot.”
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