Butler County Community College’s Class of 2024 in registered nursing included a 46-year-old single mother of six who flipped flashcards during family movie nights, at soccer practices and choral concerts, and a 44-year-old single mother from Uganda who after her husband’s death moved alone to the United States hoping to build a future for her three children.

Jamie Gallagher also mowed the grass and raked the leaves from her family’s lawn in Cranberry Township, baked chocolate-chip cookies, grilled chicken and frequently took shopping trips with her 12- and 10-year-old daughters to “look for anything Taylor Swift-related.”

Jack Bosa, a medical supplies salesman, passed away in 2013 at age 50 in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. “He used to provide for all of us,” Catherine Nangendo said about her late husband. “So it became my challenge. There were no opportunities for me in Uganda.”

Nangendo emigrated to the United States in 2017 to pursue employment and higher education and buoyed by hope her children would one day join her.

She left James, 13, Jack 10, and Liana, 8, in the care of her mother, father and sister in Mukono, a town in southeastern Uganda.

“It was one of the saddest moments of my life,” Nangendo said.

Taking prerequisite courses to become eligible to apply for acceptance into BC3’s selective-admissions Nursing, R.N., program, and completing the two-year program took Gallagher nearly four years as a full- or part-time student. Nangendo took three years.

Gallagher and Nangendo are among a record 98 graduates in 2024 in the 70-credit associate degree career program instructed on the college’s main campus in Butler Township and at BC3 @ Brockway in Brockway. Gallagher, Nangendo and six other graduates are 40 or older.

At least 23 graduates are mothers. Forty-one of graduates’ children are under the age of 18.

“Their families are going to benefit from this,” said Dr. Patty Annear, dean of BC3’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health. “Those children need to be very proud of their mothers or fathers.”

Students in BC3’s career programs can develop the skills needed to enter the workforce immediately upon graduation. BC3’s Nursing, R.N., graduates were recognized Thursday night during a pinning ceremony on the college’s main campus.

Four of her five daughters live with Gallagher. There’s Abigail, 27; Grace, 20; Lexi, 12; and Lily, 10. Abigail works from home and Grace is a college student. Daughter Isabelle, 24, lived with her family until two years ago; and son William, 23, lives in West Virginia. He is a college student currently in training exercises with the Army National Guard Reserve in the Czech Republic.

Gallagher graduated from Mount Lebanon High School in 1995 and enrolled at BC3 in 2020.

“Going back after being out of school for 25 years was very difficult,” Gallagher said. “It was learning how to study. … And learning how to balance studying and homework with my family and all the things I would have to do to keep up the house.”

Gallagher had to pass BC3 courses in chemistry and biology to qualify for the registered nursing program. Then complete program courses such as pharmacology for nurses I, II, III and IV; human anatomy and physiology I and II, general microbiology and intermediate algebra.

“My mom has always had her life revolve around her kids,” Abigail said. “So anything that would take time away from us was really difficult for her to think about.”

“With having as many children as she does, we definitely don’t always get along,” Isabelle said. “So she had to deal with that aspect as well as our two younger sisters, getting them ready, getting them out the door. Sometimes someone forgets their lunch. Someone comes home sick. And then she had school on top of that, which was the constant studying.”

“My mom sacrificed a lot,” Grace said. “It was extremely difficult. There are so many of us. My youngest sisters are still little and they need a lot of my mom’s attention.”

Added Lily: “There are so many things going on at once. You can get very stressed.”

Gallagher has accepted a position with a starting salary of more than $37 an hour at a local hospital.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, this was a 10. Definitely the hardest thing I have ever done,” Gallagher said. “I had times when I would question whether I was doing the right thing. My kids would say, ‘You’re here, but I feel like I don’t get to spend enough time with you because you are always studying.’

“And I would say, ‘You know, I am doing this for me, but I am also doing this for us.’”

Now that her mother has graduated, Lexi said, “she won’t have to do school all the time. When she has a job, she will be able to come home and do stuff with us, like go-karting and painting and crafts.”

Three years after her husband passed away, Nangendo’s high school friends now living in Maryland encouraged her to pursue “the green card lottery” — a program that makes immigrant visas available to citizens of countries with low immigration rates, according to the U.S. Department of State.

“The good thing is,” Nangendo said, “I won the lottery to be able to come to the United States.”

Her friends in Silver Spring, with whom Nangendo would live for three years, advised Nangendo to enter the nursing field.

“You will be able to make money,” Nangendo was told. “They said, ‘It is filled with very many opportunities. Then you will be able to take care of your kids.’”

She first stepped foot in the United States on Jan. 24, 2017.

As she studied to become and work as a certified nursing assistant and licensed practical nurse in Maryland, Nangendo would visit James, Jack and Liana only five times in the next 6½ years — once in 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

“It was always hard to leave them to come back to the United States,” Nangendo said.

Nangendo met a man who became her boyfriend, moved to his hometown of Butler in 2020, was hired as a licensed practical nurse at a local health care facility and enrolled at BC3 in January 2021.

“I knew that being a registered nurse would help me to take care of my kids,” she said, “and to help people when they need someone, or when they cannot take care of themselves.”

Like Gallagher, she had to pass pharmacology for nurses I, II, III and IV; human anatomy and physiology I and II, general microbiology, intermediate algebra and other courses.

A month before BC3’s fall 2023 final exams, Nangendo began the process to become a U.S. citizen.

“It would give me an opportunity to help my kids to come to the United States,” she said, “and I like to be part of the greatest country in the world.”

She was granted U.S. citizenship in January.

“I was so excited,” she said. “I knew my children could come eventually.”

James, Jack and Liana left Mukono on Monday.

“They just arrived at the airport in Uganda,” Nangendo said late Monday. “They are starting to prepare for their journey. I’m anxious about them being by themselves. I wish I was there.”

Their 28-hour trip with layovers ended when the jet landed in Pittsburgh on Tuesday evening. Two nights later, they watched their mother receive her registered nursing pin at BC3.

This time, no goodbyes.

“They will be able to stay with me and also begin a new life,” Nangendo said. “I’m so excited that we’re reunited.”

Hours before the pinning ceremony Thursday night, James, Jack and Liana sat with their mother on a sofa in the living room of their new home in their new country.

“We are very proud of her,” James, 20, said. “We are all very happy again to be with mother.”

“Now we are here with her,” Jack, 17, said, “and we are happy.”

Liana is now 15.

“I wish her a happy Mother’s Day,” Liana said, “and thank her for everything she has done for us.”

Nangendo said she would like to work for VA Butler Healthcare System.

“I am sure we are going to have a better life here,” she said, “than in Uganda.”

Gallagher on Thursday night received the Autumn Rose Cooper ’18 Nursing Award, funded through the BC3 Education Foundation by the former Autumn Gressly, a 2018 BC3 Nursing, R.N., graduate. The award funds licensure and testing fees for the post-graduation National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses.

Bill Foley is coordinator of news and media content at Butler County Community College.