By BARBARA GREEN
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Dr. Kelly Roden, MD brings her passion for rural medicine to Montague County as she joins the Nocona General Hospital Clinic expanding the team of physicians to four.
The new family medicine physician begins work this week after the Labor Day holiday. Roden and her husband, Emory, moved to Nocona from Lindale, outside Tyler. The couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, Reagan, on July 11.
The board of Nocona General Hospital invites everyone to meet the new doctor and view the recently completed renovations at the hospital during an open house at 2 p.m. on Sept. 22.
Roden grew up in Castle Rock, CO, a rural community where the family lived on small acreage. She was active in 4-H, FFA, spending her summers showing cattle, horses and other animals. The doctor says this is where she got her passion for small town rural life and the close-knit community.
As a youngster Roden recalls she wanted “to be” a lot of different things. Medicine was in the lead, but then she fell in love with agriculture going back in forth. Both her parents were engineers, and she knew her path did not lie in that direction.
“I didn’t plan on medical school at first, but I knew I wanted to serve a small town. I was recruited for a collegiate meat judging team in college, which brought me to Texas. Our team won a national championship that year,” recalls Roden.

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