Volney Steele

Volney W. Steele, M.D. (December 23, 1922 – December 23, 2015) was born in Decantur, Arkansas. Exposed to medicine at an early age by his father, Volney enrolled in the Navy V-1 program after high school and earned his degree in medicine in 1945. He then received an internship at the U.S. Naval Hospital in St. Albans, New York. As a navy Lieutenant, he served on a U.S. Navy destroyer in Turkey, Greece and the Adriatic region at the close of World War II.

Volney also was recalled during the Korean Conflict where he served at Great Lakes Naval Hospital near Chicago. Upon honorable discharge from the Navy in 1948, he completed residencies in both pathology and general surgery at University of Arkansas. After his second term with the Navy, he practiced general medicine in Meeker, Colorado. Volney then completed residencies in surgical pathology at Gorgas Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, and at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at Memorial Hospital in New York City. In 1956, Volney became the assistant professor of pathology at the University of Arkansas Medical School and received board certification in surgical pathology.

In January 1959, he arrived in Bozeman with his wife and four small children. He never looked back. Volney put all his resources into the first medical pathology lab in Bozeman, staffed by himself, one lab tech and one secretary; the origins of what would become Physicians Laboratory Service at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. Volney retired from medicine in 1986 after practicing for more than forty years. He went on to publish historical articles and books. Volney’s commitment to wounded servicemen and women led to his involvement in the formation of Warriors & Quiet Waters.