Jennifer Coyner

CHESTER, W.Va. — The Orchards will host the 14th Annual Meet Our Heroes event honoring 22 veterans from The Orchards at Foxcrest, The Orchards of East Liverpool, and the surrounding communities on Saturday, May 31 at 11 a.m. on The Orchards campus in Chester, West Virginia. This year’s address will feature guest speaker Ret. Col. Jennifer Coyner from Saint Albans, W.Va.

Born in Charleston while her dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, Coyner lived the life of an army brat and decided to pursue an Army ROTC scholarship while in college. She excelled as a cadet and earned her Airborne wings the summer of her senior year. She graduated in 1994 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps.

As the Distinguished Military Graduate, she was awarded her top choice of first assignment, Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her first love in nursing was pediatric oncology. However, while working on labor and delivery at the Army hospital on Fort Stewart, she discovered her specialty in anesthesia. She completed her anesthesia education and training at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, in 2002, just as things were escalating in Iraq and Afghanistan. As an army nurse anesthetist or “66-foxtrot, ” she deployed twice to Baghdad and Ramadi, Iraq.

She was just eight months out of anesthesia school when she received deployment orders. She also spent a year in South Korea attached to a forward surgical team. In 2009, she was accepted into the Uniformed Services University Neuroscience PhD program. She earned her PhD in the summer of 2013 and was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas (the home of Army Medicine), where she served as the Director of the Army’s nurse anesthesia program. She spent her final two years serving as the Chief of Anesthesia and Operative Services at Darnall Army Medical Center, Fort Hood, Texas.

Coyner received numerous awards throughout her 25-year active-duty career, including the Legion of Merit upon retirement. She retired from the Army on Dec. 31, 2019. She is an independent contract CRNA working and teaching at Charleston Area Medical Center.

Meet Our Heroes is open to the public and offers free admission, food, and parking.

The Orchards is a senior living community with a full continuum of care, including skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living, rehabilitation and home care services.