Kirkwood mother-daughter duo studies, graduates, works together

CEDAR RAPIDS — Traditionally, high school is a full-time gig — tying up students from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., with extracurriculars to follow — making employment something students tack on over the weekends or evenings, if at all.

But during the COVID pandemic, Lacey Kruse saw an opportunity both inside and outside the walls of Kennedy High School, where she was a junior in the 2020-2021 academic year.

“High school was a lot more flexible, which was probably part of the reason they let me take so many college classes,” Kruse, now 19, said.

In addition to her joint enrollment classes through Kirkwood Community College, the then-16-year-old Kruse also jumped into a more involved job — working, in the throes of COVID-19, at an area nursing home.

“It was COVID that afforded me the opportunity,” she said.

And by age 17, Kruse was both a high school junior and certified nursing assistant — landing a job on the dietary staff for UnityPoint Health St. Luke’s Living Center West, where her mom joined her.

“Lacey and I actually worked together there,” Rachel Graber, 46, said.

But it wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last time the mother-daughter combo would cross academic and career paths.

‘Talked me into going back’

Graber’s first degree was in photography from Hawkeye Community College — allowing her to work at a small-town newspaper. When she reentered the higher ed landscape in 2019 to become a licensed practical nurse, “She used to help me study — like even anatomy and physiology,” Graber said of her daughter.

“Because she was in biology and anatomy and physiology in high school.”

Given the interruption of COVID, Graber took a bit longer to get her LPN — with a part-time schedule and one-class-at-a-time pace.

She graduated from the LPN program in August 2021 and worked at Ob Gyn Specialists in Cedar Rapids before UnityPoint, her first coworking experience with her daughter.

Without skipping an employment beat, Kruse — after graduating high school in 2022 with all her nursing prerequisites done — stayed on her parallel work-education track that summer at Kirkwood, becoming in 2023 one of the community college’s youngest-ever licensed nurse practitioners at age 19.

Eyeing a more-advanced registered nurse degree, Kruse persuaded her mom to join her.

“She kind of talked me into going back,” Graber said.

  Buy Photo

‘All of them’

When asked whether they had any of their RN classes together, the pair said in unison, “All of them” — although they gravitated toward their own social and study groups.

“But we did study together some,” Graber said.

“I think she encouraged me to study a lot more than I maybe would have,” Kruse said.

And in May 2024 — earlier this month — the pair found themselves again in lockstep, crossing a commencement stage for Kirkwood’s pinning ceremony. Among the 63 spring nursing grads, Graber and Kruse were the first mother-daughter duo in recent history.

“And she was the youngest to get her RN,” Graber said of her 19-year-old daughter and the Kirkwood program’s history — another first the college confirmed.

Starting a job last year at Mercy Cedar Rapids, which helped pay her way to an RN, Lacey encouraged her mom to join her again post-commencement and apply for a job in the same hospital — which Graber did and got, starting earlier this week.

Next up, Lacey is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Mount Mercy University, which has a collaboration with Mercy Cedar Rapids to help cover the academic expenses. As has been their habit, Graber seems likely to follow.

“I’m still deciding whether I’m going to get my BSN,” she said. “But I probably will.”

  Buy Photo

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com