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Still Swinging

Kim Hosmer

Kim Hosmer has always loved the game of golf. Her passion for the sport began when Kim was about eight years old and she and a friend practiced hitting golf balls at a local course. “That was the time when kids were allowed to hit a few as long as they didn’t get in the way of the ‘pros’,” said Kim. “My friend’s yard backed up to the course and we would love to spend our summers practicing our swings.”

Describing herself “…as a kid who was always anxious to play,” Kim recounts one summer day when she and her friend rushed “to get in a few swings” before the course filled up with players. In her excitement, Kim was unaware that her friend was following through on a swing and she came to close to the golf club. The next thing Kim remembers was blood pouring from her temple; her friend had hit an artery. “We both were horrified,” recalls Kim. “He ran to his house to get help and I staggered on the course trying to stop the bleeding. It was his 10-year-old brother, a boy scout trained in first aid, who applied pressure to my temple and got the bleeding under control. If he hadn’t, another two minutes more and I would have died,” Kim adds.

At the hospital, Kim received a blood transfusion and it took 60 stitches to close her artery. “It wasn’t until later in life did I think how lucky I was to have had a blood transfusion. I wouldn’t have made it without it. I didn’t think much about that when I was a kid but now I do,” says Kim. Today Kim, a payroll tax analyst at Frontier Corporation, gives blood regularly as a double red cell blood donor. She says she has been a donor for approximately 20 years and finds it a rewarding experience. “It’s not painful to give blood, it doesn’t take a lot of time, and it doesn’t cost anything to help save a life. I was helped by someone and now it helps me to give to someone else. I find the whole process personally satisfying,” says Kim.

In addition to being a blood donor, Kim serves as president of Frontier Pioneers, which is a local chapter of Telecom Pioneers. Telecom Pioneers is the largest industry-related volunteer organization in the world. Kim attributes her involvement in the organization to her having “…received blood so many years ago” and which resulted in giving her “…a second chance at life.” And as for golf, Kim continues to “work on (her) swing whenever (she) gets the chance.”