The peaceful outdoor setting of Kelly's Healing Garden provides emotional and spiritual healing for patients. A guardian angel sculpture overlooks the quiet garden area set aside for cancer patients and their family to rest and reflect.
Kelly's Healing Garden bloomed in 2008 near the west entrance to the CoxHealth Cancer Center. The garden's namesake, Kelly Jo Phillips, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 16. After a two-year struggle, she passed away in 1988, just before she was to begin her freshman year at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar.
Skaggs made a promise to Kelly's father, Bob Phillips, that it would create the garden in her memory, thanking him for more than a decade of service to Skaggs Regional Medical Center as chief executive officer. He retired in 2006.