Silence speaks volumes

A gentle voice answered the phone at Bob Schneider’s Wolflin home Monday night.
“He’s not home right now,” the woman answered when I asked for Bob, the chairman of the board of trustees for Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System.
As I left a message with her, I explained I was a reporter for the Globe-News and was hoping to speak with him for a story I'm pursing on BSA.
“I’m not sure he wants to do that,” she said, her naive honesty seeping through the phone.
Her words didn’t surprise me. I didn’t expect to hear from or speak to Schneider when I called. I believed trying to reach him at his home was important needing to give him an opportunity to speak.
Schneider, like every other board member or person direct knowledge regarding the recent leaving of BSA Chief Executive John Hicks, is as tight lipped as ever.
There are not many people who know first hand what happened to Hicks. While anybody can speculate or try to inquire on their own, only these few people will know why Hicks suddenly left after 13 years at BSA’s helm.
There was no indication this was coming for the man previously believed to be extremely secure in his job.
Schneider and every other board member, none have ever returned a call concerning any story, have every right to maintain silence on what boils down to a personnel matter.
But this is different. Hicks was not a rank-and-file nurse or staffer. He was the longtime chief with an annual compensation of roughly $1 million.
BSA is one of the largest employers in Amarillo and the largest hospital in nearly 120 miles. The leadership of BSA sets policy that impacts the health care of an entire region. When that leadership changes, questions should be answered.
Why? Why did Hicks leave? Was he really fired? If so, for what reason or reasons?
The first and only time I ever reached Schneider via phone it was nearly two years ago. He hung up on me.
“We have a spokeswoman to answer your questions,” he said referring to BSA spokeswoman Mary Barlow.
Click. He ended the conversation right then with no chance for me to explain myself.
Hicks’ leaving BSA is one of the biggest stories to come out of Amarillo’s medical community in recent months.
The public may never find answers to its questions if the philosophy of the board’s current leadership doesn’t change.

Baptist executive in Amarillo says he wasn't involved in hospital CEO's leaving

The chief executive of Baptist Community Services on Monday denied any notion of his involvement in the ousting of John Hicks, chief executive of Baptist St. Anthony’s Health System who suddenly left the hospital system last week with no reason given.
“If you asked me why he left, I could not tell you,” said Tim Holloway, who was CEO of High Plains Baptist Hospital from 1977 to 1996. “There was a wall built, and I asked for it.”
The board of Baptist Community Services, which owns half of BSA, appoints half of the 12-member BSA board of trustees. Catholic partner Christus Health, which owns the other half of the hospital system, also appoints six board members.
It was a meeting between Hicks and the executive committee of the BSA board, made of three BCS and three Christus appointees, that resulted in Hicks’ leaving. Neither Hicks, the hospital nor its board stated a reason for the separation.
Hicks was named BSA CEO after the 1996 merger of High Plains Baptist and St. Anthony’s hospitals.
Holloway said Monday he removed himself from discussions involving an important BSA matter when it came up a couple of weeks ago.
“It was suggested that I not be involved in any conversations involving BSA, and I agreed with that,” Holloway said. “When somebody said that, I said ‘Fine. That suits me.'"
Holloway said he couldn’t recall who pitched the suggestion or when exactly it came.
“I have no, nada, zero input into the operations of that organization,” Holloway said of BSA.
The issue Holloway referred to, which eventually led to Hicks’ leaving, involved closed-door meetings and phone calls from BCS Senior Vice President Steve Dalrymple. Dalrymple sits on the six-member executive committee that met with Hicks.
Holloway also said the failed sale of its half of BSA to its Catholic partner last year now means nothing to the BCS board who appoints the BSA board that hires and fires the hospital chief.
BCS pitched the idea of selling its 50 percent stake in the hospital system to Christus. BCS withdrew the offer late last year after widespread backlash against the sale.
“It is a dead issue, capital D-E-A-D,” he said of the possible sale.
Holloway said Hicks, who was outspokenly against the sale of the hospital, was just doing what he thought was best for BSA.
“I wasn’t his best friend. He wasn’t my best friend, but if I saw him today, I would shake his hand,” Holloway said. “People are trying to make something out of this.”