Couple Enjoys Long Life Together Through Support of Local Health Care Community

Buddy Price went home after meeting a girl at Jones Junior College and proclaimed to his mother he had met the one he would marry one day. The girl, who would later become Bobbie Nell Price, wasn’t so sure. “I saw him in the old administration building during one of my first days on campus and I said ‘Hi,’ but he just kept on walking. I told myself right then and there, I’d never speak to him again,” Bobbie Nell said. Little did she know she would have to speak to him for the next 52 years. In September of 1949, Buddy and Bobbie Nell got married and started a long journey that neither would regret. “We’ve had a very good life together,” said Buddy.

These two individuals have cultivated the kind of relationship that seems to become more rare. Even when they’re across the room from each other, one can see the playful way each gazes at the other. Throughout the years, that secret to their success has played a bigger and bigger role as the two have supported each other through a number of illnesses, including heart attacks, ruptured disks, and pneumonia.

“I don’t mind telling you we’ve probably been the best customers South Central Regional Medical Center has had throughout the years,” Bobbie Nell said. From the birth of their two children to being treated for sickness, the Price’s owe the facility much—including their lives. In 1992, Buddy suffered a severe heart attack. He gives sole credit to the doctors and staff of South Central Regional Medical Center for extending his life with Bobbie Nell. A year later, Bobbie Nell could claim the same. She went into cardiac arrest and was revived at South Central. “I’ll forever be grateful for that,” she said. “Besides, no one else could put up with Buddy,” she laughed.

“A marriage takes commitment, dedication, and love,” Buddy said. “Add to that the fact we enjoy each other, and it is no mystery to us why we’ve stayed together for so many years.” “Just the other day, he said I looked pretty,” Bobbie Nell said—obviously proud of the notice. “Now that is the way to talk to a girl.” The Price’s have lived in Laurel for most of their married lives. Before then, they were natives of Jones County. They admit they have gone through some lean times, some trying times, but it really isn’t any different than what most folks have had to endure. The difference though is they went through them together. Another constant in the lives of the Price’s and their two children, Martha Ellen and Michelle, is the role South Central Regional Medical Center has played in their lives. That role has helped to improve their quality of life as well as prolong it. These two love to take jabs at each other. It is a form of verbal volleyball in which the give and take goes back and forth with neither of them wanting to concede.

“We have fun together,” Buddy said glancing over to Bobbie Nell. Buddy spent 36 years with Mississippi Power. It was a relationship much like the one he has with Bobbie Nell. “We helped each other I think,” Buddy said, looking back. “I worked hard for them and they helped me to support my family. It was a good relationship.”

Also firm in the couple’s mind is their opinion of South Central. “We are so fortunate to have this hospital here,” said Buddy. “The staff and doctors are some of the best you’ll find anywhere.”

According to Bobbie Nell, her mother thought so, too. “She broke her hip while visiting in Gulfport and, rather than go to the hospital there, she rode in a car all the way back here to see her doctor in her hospital,” Bobbie Nell said.

It would seem the Price’s aren’t the only ones with a successful 50-year relationship.

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