Poplar Bluff woman's hobby solid as a rock

Caring for the injured and sick creates a fast-paced life; a life Anita Hill of Poplar Bluff has worked in most of her career. When she's away from work, Hill wants relaxing and creative hobbies.

Her work life centers around helping others.

"I need something relaxing and creative," Hill said. "I like to see positive and permanent which contrasts working in EMS." In emergency medicine you "see one negative thing after another. You need something that makes you smile."

"Life is too short to be dissatisfied," she said. "People should do things that make them happy. I have seen so many tragedies."

Hill's career has helped her develop the ability to compartmentalize.

A stone bass lives in Anita Hill's art gallery.

One of Hill's favorite hobbies is her Solid as a Rock Gallery established in 2005 and located in a second garage at her home.

"Everything is priceless," said Hill smiling as she begins a tour.

The rocks are gifts from across the country and around the world given to her by family and friends including some she's collected herself. She logs information about who gave her the rock and where they found it.

"People are always smuggling me rocks," she said. "They are cheap souvenirs. You can just pick them up from around Butler County and the world."

Her career started as an aide in a nursing home before becoming a licensed emergency medical technician in Salem, Missouri. When her grandmother, Juanita, of Poplar Bluff became ill with diabetes, Hill who lived in the Viburnum area "moved here to help her" and decided to make here home.

Equipped with her EMT license, Hill went to work at Doctors Regional Medical Center. When Three Rivers College began offering paramedic classes, she thought, "how lucky can this be?" She enrolled and became the first female paramedic in Butler County. The only other female paramedic at the time in Southeast Missouri was Paula Long of Cape Girardeau. As time passed, Hill taught the EMT and paramedic classes at TRC, as well as working as a paramedic for DRMC. After the two local hospitals merged, she has continued her career at Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center.

While she had a fulfilling job, Hill decided to trade her 72-hour work week running lights and sirens to emergencies and making transfer trips to out-of-town facilities, for what she calls her semi-retirement job working 32 hours a week at PBRMC. While 32 hours is considered full time, Hill enjoys having time for her hobbies.

The Solid as a Rock Gallery features a transportation aisle, which includes a variety of transportation modes including one to remind her of Zelda, her Volkswagen Zelda.

While the collection is special, some bring back memories. A rock collected when she took her father, Blackie, to see her brother Marty at Whiteman Air Base one Father's Day is painted to look like a B-2 Stealth Bomber. A rock Hill collected while her mother, Mary, was being treated at a local medical facility now looks like an ice cream cone.

Moving on to the food section is a rock Marty brought her from Idaho. It reminds her of a spud and is painted to look like a potato. Another special rock is on loan to the gallery from her Aunt Ethel of Springfield, Mo. Ethel suggested she paint it to look like a cheeseburger. A rock from Boston is painted to look like baked beans. One from a cousin's house in Denver, Colorado is now a cantaloupe.

Other rocks are painted to look like a white tiger, an angry lion, dogs, snakes, ghosts, body parts, an elephant's ear and Vincent van Gogh's missing ear.

Another section features footwear: a Keds tennis shoe, a boot from a rock collected along Current River, elf shoes, etc. Other rocks came from the Grand Canyon, New Jersey and a piece of concrete from Las Vegas painted like a slot machine.

In the collection are rocks from Tokyo, black coral from Hawaii, rocks from a castle in Trier, Germany, and a Roman bath house and with a smile, Hill says kryptonite from Superman's home town of Metropolis, Illinois and a few rocks she'd rather not reveal where they originated.

Hill has taken her rocks to shows at Three Rivers College, the Tinnin Fine Arts Center gallery and a jewels and gems show, but it is a "challenge to transport the rocks," she said. Anyone wanting to bring their youngsters to see the rocks, may contact Hill. Anyone wanting to be a member of a rock group, may bring her a rock for her collection.