PULSE CHECK: Ashley Lipke, a registered nurse and certified diabetes educator at Cross Trails Medical Center, shares tips on avoiding diabetes as a family
Ashley Lipke grew up in Sikeston, Mo., and earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from Southeast Missouri State University. After marrying husband Scott Lipke, she literally stumbled into her job as a diabetes educator at Cross Trails Medical Center: "The day of my job interview there was about a foot of snow on the ground. As I walked toward the door, I fell face-first into the snow," she says. "I brushed the snow off and pulled myself together as best I could. When the CEO reached out to shake my hand, I remember her telling me that my hand was as cold as ice! That broke the ice, so to speak, and I explained that I had just fallen in the snow. That started a journey on the development of what is now one of the region's premier diabetes programs."