I first encountered the notion of them as a child reading Tintin, in which the staple comic character, the opera singer Bianca Castafiore, had the title ‘The Milanese Nightingale’ – something that initially confused me as Hergé portrays her as having a voice that would have one ducking for cover rather than listening rapt. They even provide the title of one of this year’s big computer game releases. Nightingales have been popping up everywhere for nearly 3,000 years, and occur in everything from the poetry of Sappho in 600BC to modern punk music, giving their name to a band that toured with the Clash. So I may as well get Keats and Berkeley Square out of the way immediately. But the cultural resonance of the world’s greatest songbird is much, much bigger than these recurring staples. There are two guaranteed reference points for any discussion about nightingales. And it’s this seductive sound that has given this tiny bird such a huge place in our culture. Nightingales have been winging their way from sub-Saharan Africa across Spain and France and into the wilder fringes of the southern part of England, where they are beginning their attempts to seduce each other by means of song. But the real highlight of the birdsong calendar is only now beginning in earnest: nightingale season. "The greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.The first cuckoos are audible, skylarks are singing their hearts out, the dawn chorus is in full, joyous effect and more bitterns are booming than in decades. Over the past thirty-two years, NAP has provided more than 200 nursing scholarships totaling over $410,000 and has honored more than 800 Pennsylvania nurses at its annual gala. A volunteer Board of Trustees, consisting of individuals who are leaders in nursing, business, industry, and other healthcare fields, has guided the organization since its inception.
Jayne and other visionary nurse leaders were the driving force behind the establishment of the Nightingale Awards of Pennsylvania (NAP) - a statewide, non-profit organization, focused on recognizing exemplary nursing practice, and granting scholarships to students pursuing degrees in nursing at all levels. In 1989, Jayne (Carson) Felgen, Chief Nursing Officer at (the former) Osteopathic Hospital in Lancaster, recognized the need to promote and support nursing in Pennsylvania, as an essential strategy to recruit and retain nurses, in order to meet the state's future healthcare needs.
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