Success Stories
Sometimes a Great Success Story is Decades in the Making: Meet the Chorpenings!
Whether you grew up in Laurie, Missouri, the Lake Ozark area or just recently started planting roots here, there are two names with which you are most likely familiar: Chuck and Joyce Chorpening.
The Chorpenings have shown unwavering support and dedication to the community as a whole, but especially to the Laurie Care Center and the Knolls, which is one-half of the Good Shepherd Nursing Home District, the only residential Rehab to Home and Outpatient facility located in the heart of Laurie.
Born in 1937 to a modest and hard-working Iowa sharecropper, Chuck Chorpening was no stranger to an honest day’s work. It was during these early days that Chuck began to show signs of his entrepreneurial spirit, which made him silently question his father’s apprehension to grow or try new things and led to his own lifelong “can do” approach. It wasn’t until he was an adult that Chuck realized just how much the Great Depression had taken a toll on his father, who lost everything, including the 80 acres they cropped. He spent the rest of his life struggling to recoup. Chuck stated that he could now understand how a man would want to hold onto every penny he made and bury it in the backyard, never taking any chances or risks. However, for Chuck, the “can do” fire within him was just beginning, and his passion for seeing things grow could not be denied.
In 1956, just out of the seminary at Central Bible School, Chuck married the girl of his dreams—the girl he remembered riding with her brother in the oil rig when they were just kids. She was a part of her family’s oil company—the same company that Chuck’s dad happened to be a customer of.
Chuck remembers thinking “What a strong, cute tomboy,” while watching that girl get out of the rig to climb to the top and get the hose. Chuck’s dad’s voice telling him to “stop standing there with your jaw open and get back to work!” would pull him from his reverie.
Joyce, a talented pianist who was born into her family’s orchestra, also had a mind for business and hard work, both attained from her family’s oil business. She and Chuck created a union that—with God and their faith as the most important components—would prove to be one that would not only sustain but also grow Chuck’s “can do” spirit!
Chuck began working for an electronics company in outside sales, and before long, he and Joyce were moving through different states as Chuck climbed the ranks of the corporate ladder. Because of Chuck’s success, the two decided that they would open the first of what would prove to be many successful businesses they would come to own. All the while, they raised three children and Chuck continued to consult for McDonald Douglas, which he did for 32 years.
Because of these successes, Chuck and Joyce were able to retire in their 40s and leave their home in Overland Park, KS, for the slower pace and beautiful scenery of the Ozarks, where they owned a vacation home that they had often escaped to over the years. They were already part-time community members of Laurie, MO, an area of Lake Ozark that many retirees find especially appealing. As Joyce puts it: “When you retire in your 40’s, you don’t really retire.”
Around 1982, the board of directors for the Good Shepherd Nursing Home District hired a young and vivacious district administrator named Lance Smith, who had successfully climbed the ranks of the nursing home corporate ladder himself in Las Vegas, Nevada. He had decided that the fast pace of the city and corporate world was not what he wanted for his young family. He, too, longed for the much slower nature of a small community nursing home district and he found that in Laurie, MO, close to where his wife had grown up.
Unsure of how he was going to navigate this new assignment, he looked to a handful of community members that people told him could be instrumental in helping him make The Good Shepherd Nursing Home District the best that it could be. Joyce was one of those community members. As she says, “This is the only nursing home facility that we have in our community. Why not make it the very best that it can be?”
At that fateful meeting, Lance asked Joyce if she knew of anyone who would be willing to form a volunteer program…and the rest was, as they say, history. Joyce was born the youngest of older parents who taught her to always give back, and that if she saw a need, to find a way to fulfill it. Joyce would go on to become the volunteer coordinator for the next 9 years. In this position, she enlisted and oversaw over 200 volunteers dedicating their time to the care centers in different capacities. She spearheaded two huge fundraisers a year for the facilities as well, all the while sharing with Chuck some of the trials and tribulations she found herself facing. One of those trials was the lack of reliable transportation for the residents. Chuck says, “She had a need and I said, ‘Okay, let’s do something about it!’” And that he did…
At the time, Chuck was the chairman of the Lake Ozark Council of Governments, which covered Morgan, Miller, Camden, and Laclede counties. In this position, he worked with MoDot on a grant that would allow LCC a total of 6 vans with the facility only having to bear 20 percent of the cost. These vans are still part of the fleet used by the Good Shepherd Nursing Home District today.
“This is our community. If we have a need, we must join together and fix it! Life is too short for us not to be kind to one another,” Chuck says.
The Good Shepherd Nursing Home District was thriving when the effects of COVID-19 in 2020 brought the community to its knees. Volunteering was halted as nursing homes all across the country all but closed—even though the need for them was at an all-time high. Thanks to this wonderful community of support from people like Chuck and Joyce, the Good Shepherd Nursing Home District is slowly beginning to recover. So on August 13, 2024, when Chuck unexpectedly broke his hip which required surgery and a transfer from the hospital to a facility that had rehab-to-home care, it was a no-brainer that Chuck come back to Laurie Care Center—the place he and Joyce had strived to make the best. He stayed there for a little over three weeks, doing in-patient therapy. He states that he cannot say enough about the wonderful therapy he received there that got him ready to go home. In a word, he says, it was “FANTASTIC.”
Chuck enjoyed the things that have been added to the care center within the last few years, especially the ability to order one’s meals daily on a tablet. There are so many options to choose from. He also made sure to mention what a friendly and knowledgeable staff he encountered.
Chuck was especially touched when, before leaving the facility, he got a welcome visitor: his old friend and now longtime district administrator himself, Lance Smith. Lance had come to catch up with his friend and make sure that the Good Shepherd NHD continued to be in line with Chuck’s vision of being the best in the business.
Chuck Chorpering has worn many hats in the community that he began to call him in the early 1980’s. He was the mayor of Laurie in 2008 and he was on the foundation board at Lake Regional Hospital. His most recent title, however, surpasses all titles and occupations he’s ever held: In 2019, Chuck was credited and ordained and became the senior pastor of the Community Chapel Church of God in Gravois Mills, where he remains as pastor today. Chuck has always felt compelled to serve God, and shortly after moving to the Lake area, his and Joyce’s faith was tested when they unexpectedly lost one of their sons. Chuck says, “It is our belief in God that kept us going,” and Joyce says that Chuck feels he is now doing what he should have been doing his entire life.
Things aren’t necessarily slowing down at all for the Chorperings: As we spoke, Chuck was scheduled to start his outpatient therapy program at Laurie Care Center while Joyce has once again accepted the challenge of advising and volunteering at LCC. She lives by her motto “If you see a need, give back!”
While working with our expert therapy team and our professional staff of nurses, CNAs, and knowledgeable support staff, Chuck continues to show that “can do” spirit. He was at home ambulating and recovering three weeks after he was admitted to the hospital. Now he’s resting up for phase two—outpatient therapy—with the same expert staff he quickly grew to trust with his care.
Chuck, we do not doubt that you are going to graduate with flying colors. Thank you for trusting the Laurie Care Center and the Good Shepherd Nursing Home District with your care and for allowing us to share your success story…one that started over four decades ago when you simply “saw a need”!