March 3, 2026
Isgett, Miller honored for service to the community
Pictured Left to Right: Mike Miller, Dr. Fred Carter, Donna Isgett, and Kyla Fraser.
Isgett, Miller honored for service to community
The 15th annual Marion Medallion was awarded to McLeod Health CEO and President Donna Isgett and Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce President Mike Miller.
The ceremony took place on Feb. 27, Francis Marion Day. The award is presented by Francis Marion University in collaboration with The Morning News.
“Since its inception, the award has been bestowed upon an array of what I feel are community heroes who are demonstrating deep devotion and service across this community,” FMU President Dr. Fred Carter said during the ceremony.
The first award was presented to Miller by Dr. Carter.
“Now it is my privilege and distinct pleasure to introduce our first recipient, Michael,” Carter said. “Mike has served this community at two different times in his career. Both were periods vital to the growth and prosperity of area and our region.”
Miller first served in Florence in 1999 as the publisher of The Morning News. Carter credits him with helping unite the Pee Dee and the Grand Strand at a time when the market was fragmented. He left Florence for a publishing job in North Carolina until he came back in early 2014.
“I could speak forever in praise of Mike Miller’s accomplishments, but you all get it,” Carter said. “Every aspiring city desperately needs a Mike. We got him at precisely the right time – twice. Count your blessings, Florence.”
Miller serves at a time when the City of Florence is revitalizing. Carter credits him with also revamping the chamber into being “inclusive, affordable and relevant.”
Miller recalled advice from his father, including “You can do great things in life, Mike, but you’re going to do even better things if you know how to garner good relationships and strong partnerships and friendships.”
The next Medallion was presented to Isgett by Kyla Fraser, president and director of local sales and marketing at The Morning News.
“I will say that the more I learn about this woman, I have mad respect for anyone who starts off in the trenches, works their way up, stays community involved, and makes a great impact where they live and work, and it’s something I’ve always aspired to and will probably forever more hold you as a mentor,” Fraser said.
Isgett said that she feels that the people who have supported her in both the Florence community and McLeod have helped her get to where she is today.
“But, seriously, as I thought about today, I think about two things, the shoulders that I stand on and the hands that I hold, the shoulders that I stand on,” Isgett said. “… There is no ‘I’ in team. So I appreciate the individual award, but it is better together for us, and that’s what makes the meaningful difference.”
Isgett started in health care as a flight nurse and moved into leadership from there. She joined McLeod in 1997 and served as the chief quality officer, senior vice president of McLeod Physician Associates and chief operating officer before becoming president and CEO.
McLeod Health’s Isgett serves beyond the office
McLeod Health and its president and CEO, Donna Isgett, have the same mission: to improve the health and wellbeing of the region they serve.
McLeod does this by working with its communities inside and outside of health care settings.
And that’s why Isgett stays involved with many organizations around the area.
“Interestingly, health care is only 20% of health,” she said. “Eighty percent of health is food, shelter, feeling safe, all of those things. And so if our responsibility and mission is to improve the health and wellbeing, I better be engaged in that other 80% just like I’m engaged in that 20% right?”
Most every night of the week, Isgett finds herself at some sort of engagement. A few of the groups she’s been involved with include the economic development board, the Kiwanis Club and the S.C. Hospital Association, which she was chair of twice.
“A typical day for me will be usually out in the community doing something,” she said. “I’m just coming back from a luncheon with some of the women leaders in the community and the mayor and others, you know, making sure that we’re recognizing people that contribute to the city.”
Isgett has a background in nursing, starting her career as an emergency flight nurse. She thinks this provided her with a good background to take leadership roles because she knows what happens in the rooms with patients.
“I think it is very advantageous that I understand clinically what’s happening,” she said. “I am not a physician, but I can speak with them, and I have enough core knowledge to understand what they need for their patients, and I think that has served me well, that they’re not talking to a businessperson, they are talking to a caregiver.”
When working with a physician, she feels that she has more understanding about what they need and how to support them because she has worked in the rooms they are in.
Isgett first got into nursing because she likes caring for people and decided in her early teens that she wanted to go into a caring profession. She chose nursing because she was financing her education and she could get a scholarship from a local hospital to earn her associate’s degree and then start work.
She did her first clinical in an emergency department but then was a flight nurse for about 12 years.
“You’re very dependent on your team members, your paramedics in flight nursing,” she said. “But that we can land, and we can go in and we could work like a well-oiled machine, and we could take people and take them somewhere. I mean, I love that.”
After she was a flight nurse, she moved into leadership as chief quality officer and then was selected to be senior vice president of physician associates. After that, she became chief operating officer. In March of 2021, she was named the first woman president and CEO of McLeod Health.
“The only real job I interviewed for was the first one,” she said.
When she first joined McLeod as the chief quality officer, she was selected by leadership to enter her new positions.
“Matter of fact, I did something with a student this morning and she said, ‘What’s your best advice?’” Isgett said. “I said ‘Put your head down and do the best job you know how to do in the job you’re in.’ And you know, it doesn’t mean you can’t say ‘I might be interested in growth,’ but don’t have your eyes on the future, have your eyes on the present and just be as good as you can be in the present, and then the future will come.”
Florence Chamber of Commerce President Mike Miller builds connections in Florence
Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce President Mike Miller’s job is to stay as connected to the community as possible.
His favorite part of the job is meeting people and getting to know everyone in the Florence community. To him, the most challenging part is on the other side of the coin, which is staying ahead of the politics and keeping everyone informed in the community.
When asked what a typical day looks like for him in this role, he said he is not sure there has been a typical day in his job.
The first thing he does when he gets to the office in the morning is inform himself about what is going on in the community.
“Whether it’s reading the news, watching, reading online what’s happening in the community and responding to what’s happening there,” Miller said. “Are we as a chamber, are we tuned into that and making sure the staff is tuned into that?”
His background is in communications. He was a newspaper publisher for 38 years, including at the Morning News in Florence. Through the connections he made at the Morning News, he returned to Florence to run the Chamber of Commerce.
Miller’s experience in the media has been useful in his current position.
“No matter what industry you decided to go into, it’s always a matter of relationships,” Miller said. “And if you have good relationships and you have the ability to connect with people, it makes it a lot easier, no matter what the discipline is.”
He said he took the opportunity to come back to Florence because he loved it, especially the people.
“’It’s a great place to raise a family. … It just is. And the real secret to Florence is the relationships, it’s the people. I was delighted to come back. I’m even more delighted now that I am back,” he said,
One of the most influential and supportive relationships has been with Dr. Fred Carter, president of Francis Marion University.
“I’ve had an awful lot of support from a variety of people throughout the community over the last 26 or so years, but Dr. Carter, he’s always been there, and I’ve really enjoyed that relationship,” Miller said.
Miller works to help the Florence business community become better each day, foster friendships and contribute to the community becoming a more inviting and better place to live.
His ultimate goal is to leave the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce better than it was when he found it.
“We’re right there, but we keep changing the bar and raising it higher, and I think that’s what keeps me challenged and keeps the staff challenged, and keeps us relevant to the community.”