Rucker new RMC administrator
by Joey Martin - posted Thursday, January 24th, 2013 @ 7:39 am

Riverland Medical Center Board members did not have to look far for their newest administrator, as longtime Riverland employee Billy Rucker accepted the position Tuesday night at the board's monthly meeting.

Rucker, who served as assistant administrator for six years, was serving as Special Projects Manager at the hospital.

"I was shocked when they first approached me, but I'm deeply grateful to the board to take me into consideration," said the 72-year-old Rucker. "I look at this hospital as a family and I want to hold the family together. We have excellent personnel and working and I want to keep us moving in the right direction. At my age I could have retired, but I really care about this hospital. To me it's the backbone of Concordia Parish.

"This will be a learning experience for me in a few ways, but I'm excited about it and look forward to serving in this capacity."

Rucker replaces Donald "Donny" Rentfro, who resigned last month to accept a job as Chief Administrations Officer for Natchez Regional Medical Center's Physician Foundation and Hospital Operations. Rentfro took over as administrator at Riverland in last May, replacing Lana Stamper, who served from October 2010 until Rentfro came on board.

"We believe Billy deserves to be administrator," said Riverland Board Chairman Jim Graves. "Donny left us in good shape and he and Billy worked well together. Billy knows this hospital inside and out and knows just about everyone connected with health care in the state. It's his time and we're excited for him."

The board re-elected Graves as chairman and Fred Butcher as vice-chairman.

Graves said the hospital had a break-even month in December.

"We've been extremely busy so we expect the next two months to be profitable months," he said.