North Sunflower Medical Center had only eight hours of operating revenue in the bank when Billy Marlow accepted the task of helping turn around the medical facility as executive director.
He worked his magic much like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life when he sacrificed his own honeymoon money to keep the business open. Marlow didn’t open up his own wallet but did take a cue from the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams.
He built it. Patients came. The rest is history.
“I’ve definitely seen the worst. When I came in they had eight hours of cash on hand. The roof was falling in on patient beds. There were 50-year-old x-ray machines. It was terrible,” Marlow said. “My father-in-law drilled something into me when he said, ‘Son, you better bring in more money than you put out.’ And that’s been my philosophy.”
The Ruleville resident was born in the facility he has helped turnaround and is a lifelong Drew resident. He keeps a close watch over the room he was born in.
“I can take you right to it,” Marlow said. “I don’t know if I can ever leave here. I’ll guess I’ll leave from where I was born.”
He attended Ruleville High School then graduated from North Sunflower Academy in 1972 before taking classes at then Mississippi Delta Junior College (now MDCC.) He then attended Delta State University’s flight school for a year to get his pilot’s license.
“Then I went off into the wild blue yonder to work and have been working ever since,” he said. “I spent 25 years in the catfish business and then thought it was time to retire.”
But a visit from a couple of Sunflower County supervisors convinced him to use his skills to turn around the failing hospital.
“I sat on the board to see if I could help ’em,” Marlow said. “Then I was moved to chairman of the board and the same day was moved to interim administrator in 2004,” he said. “I guess I’ve been there ever since. I tried to quit. Tried to retire but they won’t let me.”
He’s seen the highs and lows. But he keeps applying his own philosophy to running the medical facility and all of its secondary and tertiary businesses.
“I’m not a cost cutter as much as I am a revenue generator. I like to grow things and keep people happy,” he said. “Employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction is big with me. Having a clean facility and good food is important to me.”
His first revenue generator was updating equipment. With a little investigation, it was discovered the hospital could have two brand new x-ray machines for the same cost as leasing the 50-year old ones.
“It didn’t cost us a thing and gave us a big jump start,” he said.
From that decision, many more were spawned and the facility turned around. Marlow’s own Field of Dreams began to take shape. Not in a cornfield but there were definitely soybeans and other row crops in the vicinity.
“If you build it, they’ll come so we did things that were clean and neat and productive and gave good patient satisfaction. I remember having a social worker coming to me one day about 15 years ago and I asked why she wanted to be a part of what we’ve got? And she just looked at me and said, ‘when I look around, I see what’s happening and I want to be a part of it.’ I never forgot that.”
And with many other health providers begging for employees and help, NSMC has not had this problem — they stay fully staffed in every area.
“We haven’t done everything right. But we’ve done a lot of right. I’ve been there 19 years and when I came there all I knew was where the front door and emergency room was. I guess God put me on this earth for something and he’s still got me here. Maybe this is it.”
Adding to the main medical campus includes the Beacon Wellness Center, a 33,000-square-foot facility that houses the surgical wing, administration, The Sleep Center and a state-of-the-art workout facility. There’s also a diversified facility with services including a 25-bed acute care/swingbed critical access unit, 60-bed skilled nursing facility, 10-bed senior care unit, an out-patient behavioral health clinic, radiology services, MRI, 64-slice CT scanner with cardiac CTA scan, doppler, emergency room, durable medical equipment, lab services, GI lab, a wide range of surgical and outpatient procedures, Sunflower Diagnostic Center, cardiac clinic, nuclear stress testing, and Sunflower Clinic that is open every day from 8 a.m. to midnight, a specialty clinic offering wound care services and pediatric sub-specialists, Simply Sunflower Gift, Flower, & Scrub Shoppe and Sunflower Med Spa. NSMC also partners with services such as Mississippi Sports Medicine and Mississippi Center for Advanced Medicine to bring specialists to the Mississippi Delta.
With a staff of approximately 500 employees dedicated to top notch patient care, Sunflower County residents and many more across the Magnolia State and beyond constantly say, “Take Me To Ruleville!”
Coming from his catfish farm to the medical world, Marlow says his catfish background helped him learn “what I didn’t want to do.” Married to Robyn Marlow, who passed away in 2021, they blended a family in Ruleville with his two daughters and her two sons. One daughter, Brooks Rizzo (married to Paul) is a nurse practitioner at NSMC. The youngest daughter, Dr. Lauren Marlow, is an internal medicine doctor at NSMC.
“They love what they are doing and I’m proud to have them home and near me,” he said.
Growing up in the Delta, Marlow, nearing 70 years of age, doesn’t pilot anymore but spent years flying and hunting and fishing the Mississippi Delta. These days, he’s content fishing in his own private bass pond surrounding his home.
“I live a mile out of town and some afternoons in the summer months I’ll come home and turn the grease on outside and let it get warm. Then I’ll walk down the bank and in a couple of minutes I’ve got a couple of three-pound bass. I filet them, stick ’em in the grease and have my supper. I used to hunt a lot but I’m not as mad at them as I used to be (laughing.)”
Working in Sunflower County and in the medical world for nearly two decades, Marlow feels good about his endeavors.
“My best feeling of accomplishment is that I’ve been able to help the people around me and around Ruleville. It’s been very rewarding to me,” he said. “I live where I lived when I first came home from North Sunflower County Hospital.”
With a new five-year plan on the drawing board, NSMC continues to look to the future with possible clinics and an assisted-living complex.
“We’ve got some exciting things coming and within six months people, I hope, will feel good about them.”
Still building it. Patients still coming and Billy “George Bailey” Marlow continues to love, support and grow Sunflower County. Take me to Ruleville, indeed.
