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A lot of things have changed in the last half century. Connelly's dedication to her job has not been among them. "I love doing what I do," the 71-year-old senior accounts payable professional said. "I don't know that I would have worked this long any other place."
The hospital will recognize Connelly's 50 years of service at an awards banquet Tuesday.
She is the only employee in the hospital's 65-year history to reach such a remarkable milestone.
"It's incredible," said BMH Patient Financial Services Director Kristine Richardson, Connelly's former supervisor. "She's been working here since before I was born."
A Sheldon native and Beaufort High School graduate, Connelly planned to become a nurse, but changed direction in 1959 and took a six-month course at Perry Business School. After graduating, she landed a job as a switchboard operator and admissions/discharge clerk at Beaufort Memorial Hospital.
Back then, the hospital's telecommunications system consisted of two outside phone lines. With no caller ID, doctors were assigned their own distinctive rings so the operator would know which physician was calling.
"Every call to the hospital had to come through the switchboard," Connelly recalled. "In those days, patients didn't have phones in their rooms."
After five years on the switchboard, Connelly moved to the accounting office where she helped file insurance claims. In time, she began processing invoices. She has worked in the accounts payable department ever since.
"You can always count on Nelmays," said BMH Chief Financial Officer Jeff White. "She knows accounts payable backwards and forwards."
For Connelly, Beaufort Memorial has been more than just a workplace. She gave birth to her daughter at the hospital in 1969 and was one of the first patients to have a gallbladder removed with laser surgery. Just recently, she had minimally-invasive shoulder surgery on an outpatient basis.
"I consider the hospital my home," said Connelly, who lives just five minutes from the hospital complex. "It seems like I spend more time here than anywhere else."
Her office, located the past dozen years in a separate building on the hospital campus, is decorated with an assortment of BMH mementos -- a brick from the first hospital building, an old wooden boardroom chair that was discarded during a renovation and a framed aerial photo of Beaufort Memorial given to her on her 45th anniversary.
The collection is augmented during the holidays with a Christmas stocking and wreath Connelly crafted out of calculator spools she saved over the years.
A witness to five decades of changes, Connelly has seen the hospital grow from a small, single-story structure to a full-service medical complex that includes a multi-story main building and tower, a fitness and wellness center and a plaza of doctors' suites, along with a satellite outpatient center in Bluffton and the Duke-affiliated Keyserling Cancer Center in Port Royal. More than 150 physicians are now on staff at the 197-bed hospital.
"I never imagined all the advances that have been made," Connelly said. "One of the most important has been the cancer center. Back in the '80s when my husband had cancer, I had to drive him to Charleston every day for months. I'm so grateful we now have a cancer treatment facility right here in Beaufort."
After 50 years, Connelly concedes she has occasionally thought about retiring. But she quickly dismisses the idea.
"I'm just not ready yet," she said. "I enjoy going to work every day. It's the love of my life."
