Caris Healthcare joined Mars Hill University students, parents, faculty, alumni and friends in celebrating the graduation of the first class of Mars Hill students to receive their bachelor of science in nursing (B.S.N.) degrees from the university’s new Judge-McRae School of Nursing.

In her keynote address at the December 16 graduation ceremony, Caris Healthcare Co-Founder Linda Judge-McRae, a 1986 graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in English who later became a nurse, passed along a valuable life lesson from her high school Latin teacher: “The least you can do is the best that you can.”

Linda met her husband, Norman, at Mars Hill a private, liberal arts institution in Mars Hill, North Carolina. Together they founded Caris Healthcare in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2003. As proud—and grateful—alumni, they have remained active throughout the years in the Mars Hill community. In providing the initial support for the Judge-McRae School of Nursing, Linda and Norman hoped not only to provide opportunity for future generations but also to foster the same spirit of service and community that Mars Hill instilled in them and that has guided them in building one of the nation’s largest and most-respected private hospice providers at Caris Healthcare.

“I’ll be the first to admit every day is not my best,” Linda continued in her keynote address. “Some days are just hard, aren’t they? Some days the elevator just won’t go all the way up. But … I know with great confidence that we worship a God of second chances, and there is a chance for me to do my best, be my best, and give my best tomorrow and in the days ahead. I challenge you, Graduates to the do the same.

“It’s the least you can do.”