Sweeting appointed

to health commission
By Jeff Eason

After more than three decades of helping folks in the High Country with their health issues, family nurse practitioner Sue Sweeting will be taking her job to the state level.

Three weeks ago North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue appointed Sweeting to the N.C. State Commission for Public Health.

Last Sunday, Rep. Cullie Tarleton (D-93) returned to Blowing Rock for a special swearing in ceremony at the home of Sue and Mike Sweeting.

As a member of the NC Commission for Public Health, Sweeting and her fellow commissioners are charged by the N.C. General Assembly to protect and promote the public’s health through a variety of efforts.

Those include preventing health risks and disease; identifying and reducing health risks in the community; detecting, investigating and reducing health risks in the community; promoting healthy lifestyles; promoting a safe and healthful environment; promoting the availability and accessibility of quality health care services through the private sector; and providing quality health care services when not otherwise available.

Previously, Sweeting has served as a Watauga County Commissioner (1998-2002), as a member of the Medical Society Task Force (1995), on the Christian Education Committee of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Boone, and as the chair of the Council of Primary Care Nurse Practitioners, NCNA (1991-1995).

She is currently serving as a member of the Blowing Rock Planning Board (since 2005) and has been vice chair of the board since 2007.

Professionally Sweeting has been a family nurse practitioner in Watauga County since 1991 and previously worked as director of nursing at Watauga Nursing Care and as a staff nurse at Watauga Medical Center.