Kay Lanier Obituary

1938-2023
KAY is survived by her daughter Tara of Wilmington NC, nieces Kathy and Kay and Sister-in-Law Nancy Blankenship, all the Clarksburg/Parkersburg area of WV. She was preceded in death by her brother James Blankenship, mother Maxine "Toots" Moore Blankenship Pennington, father Dorr Blankenship, stepfather Eugene Pennington, Aunts Sis, and Mina all from Nitro WV at some point.
Kay was born in Creston, Wirt County, West Virginia on a chilly March 1938 morning. The family home was built by Marlin Parks, a lieutenant with the West Virginia Infantry volunteers of the Union Army.
Her father taught Kay to speed read and instilled a lifelong love of reading. She was known to have 5 books going at one time. Her hobbies included caring for cats, gardening exotic vegetables and flowers, collecting Spode and Blue Delft items, and exotic travel.
She graduated from the Charleston Area Medical Center surgical assistant program, received a BS in Nursing from Marshall University, and was certified as a Nurse Practitioner in Trauma and Pediatrics. Her employment was predominantly at CAMC, Holzer Hospital in Gallipolis OH, King Fahad Royal Hospital in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, and WOMAK hospital located on Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg), She loved triage, trauma, and tolerated drunks with the best.
Her passion was traveling to exotic locales. Her dream was to visit 100 countries, which she accomplished in 2021 with a trip to Turkey to see the Whirling Dervishes. Typical travel locations were Nepal, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Central and South America, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, and Egypt. Many trips were made with daughter Tara to England to seek out Norman architecture and location's that were home to her ancestors on the East Coast of England.
Travel tales included crocodile attacks in Zimbabwe, riding in an elevator with Dr. Ruth and Charlton Heston in Beijing, meeting the first troops of the first Gulf War with cold Coca Colas, walking parts of the Camino de Santiago, the Inca Trail, and visits to shrines and temples across the world.
Kay volunteered often as field nurse for the archaeological site Carthage in Tunisia, and two stints as clinic nurse in Malawi serving woman and children. She would arrange for retired medical equipment in West Virgina to be sent to Malawi.
She resided in many locations; Creston, Nitro, Cross Lanes, Buffalo, and Point Pleasant WV; Gallipolis OH; Riyadh Saudi Arabia, Fayetteville, and Wilmington NC. She passed in October 2023, from complications of a 25+ year campaign to thwart melanoma.
Kay has left several tasks for Tara, including initiating an Endowment to the Nursing Program at Marshall and a promise with every overseas trip, a handful of Kay is to travel there and be spread into the wind. Those who knew Kay will completely understand this last request.