The Working@Duke team also selected seven more photos that feature amazing summer moments.

Thank you to everyone who shared glimpses of their summer fun and to the generous campus partners who provided our prizes.

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Grand Prize Winner: Debbie Johnson

Every few months, Duke Raleigh Surgery Center Clinical Nurse Debbie Johnson will make the long drive to Metter, Georgia, to spend time with her 95-year-old Mother, Ruby.

Suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, Ruby has lived in a memory care facility for the past two years. In June, Debbie made the trip down with her 20-year-old son, Bowen, who is an accomplished musician.

“She has good days and bad days, but she really responds to music,” Debbie said. “And she seems to remember my son’s name and when he starts playing, she comes out of her shell.”

Debbie said that when Bowen plays “Pride and Joy” by Stevie Ray Vaughn, Ruby often claps to the beat. When he plays “Amazing Grace,” she’ll lift her arms like in praise. And on this visit, a fellow resident of the facility heard the music and requested Bowen play Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.”

When Debbie snapped this photo, Bowen was playing his grandmother another of her favorites, “Kathy’s Song,” by Simon & Garfunkel.

“I just felt like I needed to get a picture of what I was feeling watching him play for her and seeing how she was responding to him,” Debbie said. “It put a smile on her face. She was just mesmerized. It was just a special moment.”

Debbie’s touching photo landed her a “Classic Package for Two” at the Washington Duke Inn.

“I know there are a lot of other coworkers are dealing with aging parents and memory issues, so I was thankful for the week off to travel to Georgia and spend time with family and friends,” Debbie said.

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Grand Prize Winner: Jesse Banks

More than a decade ago, Jesse Banks spent two years living in Haiti when she worked for a nonprofit called Build Change. Banks helped train local engineers and builders how to design seismically resistant housing and was the Lead Structural Engineer overseeing the construction of more than 180 homes in Port-au-Prince.

“I grew to love the culture and spirit of so many individuals who exuded grace and hope,” said Banks, now Director of Construction for Duke Health Engineering & Operations. 

So, when Haiti played Brazil in the FIFA World Cup this summer in her hometown of Philadelphia, Banks had to be there.

Banks’ photo capturing her husband, Korey, and sons Isaac, 6, and Aiden, 3, in the stands at the game is Working@Duke’s Duke Time Off winner of a tour for four at the Duke Lemur Center. 

She called the World Cup game a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to cheer for players from a country with a special place in her heart and experience “the noise, the colors, the dance and joy.”

Haiti was on the losing end of the 3-0 score, but Banks said it was a magical experience.

“This one belongs to my husband and our boys,” she said.

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Duke Arts Presents Winner: Heather Rabalais

Heather Rabalais knows her summer vacation photo doesn’t look like “your typical fun way to spend some time off.” But it was a meaningful moment when Rabalais’s husband, Ted, rang the bell at Duke Blood Cancer Center on July 16 to signal his final chemotherapy treatment for mantle cell lymphoma.

Rabalais, Program Coordinator for Undergraduate Education at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, is a winner of two tickets to a Duke Arts Presents performance in Working@Duke’s Duke Time Off campaign.

Rabalais said a night out will be welcome after she has spent the better part of the past four months accompanying her husband to doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy treatment every three weeks. 

Ted’s bell-ringing was a small moment that signified something so much larger for both.

“This was a joyful occasion,” Heather Rabalais said. “We are happy to not be hanging out in clinic every three weeks and have life return to normal.”

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Duke Arts Presents Winner: Hunter Spotts

Dr. Hunter Spotts and his wife Wendy had planned to spend the last week of June hiking in the mountains of New Hampshire. But when Wendy injured her knee about a month before the trip, the couple pivoted and booked a Norway cruise instead.

During seven days of sailing among the majestic fjords and charming towns of Norway, Spotts, the Director of Student Health Services, got an opportunity to explore the dramatic coastline of Geirangerfjord in a kayak.

“It was stunning, just spectacular,” Spotts said of the outing during which he captured the scenic photo selected as one of the contest winners. “The pictures don’t really do it justice. You’re down in the water and you’re looking up at these high hills. There are waterfalls all along the fjords.”

Considering the Norway trip was a backup plan, Spotts said he was grateful to use his time off to have quality time with his wife and find unforgettable experiences in nature.

“It’s always important to step back and get away,” Spotts said. “My wife considers vacation to be an active verb. We’re not sit-on-the-beach kind of people; we like to go and do active things. But I think it’s also important to simply go and get perspective by seeing how other people do things in other places.”

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Employee Shutterbug: Emily Browne

Emily Browne, a Clinical Nurse at Brier Creek Endoscopy, has been working at Duke for nearly five years, but until this year, she had never submitted a photo to Working@Duke’s Duke Time Off campaign. 

This year, Browne embraced a determined approach to the campaign – and sent in 61 photos to working@duke.edu chronicling her summer adventures. Browne is this year’s “Shutterbug” winner for being Duke Time Off’s most consistent contributor. 

“I decided if I’m not going to win for the coolest photo, I’m at least going to try to submit a lot of photos,” Browne said. “Because I do try to keep myself busy, I might as well just document my usual day-to-day stuff.”

Browne’s photos included time off spent with friends and family, riding her bike, rooting for Colombia in the FIFA World Cup, escapades with her family’s visiting dog who happens to be named Duke, and two trips up to visit family in Grand Haven, Michigan.

“The highlight of my summer is just trying to maximize all my time outside with friends,” Browne said. “Just trying new things and going to different events outdoors.” 

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Social Media Winner: Mary Tassone

The highlight of summer for Duke Raleigh Hospital Infection Prevention Specialist Mary Tassone was a nine-day cruise she took to Bermuda and the Bahamas with her daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren.

The cruise set sail from Baltimore in late June. As the ship prepared to leave port, an air show celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday was taking place in the skies above.

As Tassone and her family watched, the United States Navy’s Blue Angels, the French Air and Space Force’s Patrouille de France and the Red Arrows of the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force all took turns doing dazzling aerial routines.

During their portion of the show, the Red Arrows used colored smoke to paint the image the American flag in the sky. Tassone, who fondly remembers the flyovers of the Blue Angels from her childhood in nearby Virginia Beach, Virginia, snapped a photo of the moment that she later shared on Facebook. The image was picked as our favorite social media submission.

“I was dumbstruck,” Tassone said. “It was amazing. The rest of the cruise was amazing, but that was a cherry-on-the-top moment.”

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Seven Amazing Photos Kara Bonneau

In early July, Duke School of Medicine Research Program Leader Kara Bonneau took a trip to Canada to see the majestic northern end of the Rocky Mountains. On the first day of the trip, Bonneau rose before dawn to capture this photo, which she shared in Instagram, of the sky just after sunrise.

“I have about a hundred beautiful photos leading up to this one, when the sun finally cracked over the mountains behind me to illuminate the summits of Pilot Mountain and Mount Bourgeau,” Bonneau wrote.

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Ethan Witt

During a safari in June with his wife and family in Uganda, Dr. Ethan Witt, a Hospitalist at Duke Regional Hospital and a passionate amateur photographer, captured a stunning photo of one of the chimpanzees he encountered.

“We had a magical experience with the chimpanzees in the forest, and this photo is my favorite one,” Witt said.

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Rizza Cruz

In late May, Rizza Cruz, a Clinical Nurse in Duke University Hospital’s 9200 Oncology Unit, took her three sons to Washington D.C. After the family moved to the United States from the United Arab Emirates last fall, getting a chance to see the U.S. Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and the National Museum of Natural History was a thrill.

“As a newly migrated family, we have been excited to explore the incredible places the United States has to offer, and visiting our nation’s capital was a dream come true,” Cruz wrote.

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Su Yeon Kim

For Su Yeon Kim, a Duke Spine Center Clinical Nurse, time away from work – especially when it’s spent with her family – helps her come back to her job feeling refreshed and grateful. She captured this joy in a photo she shared from June trip to Florida’s Siesta Key Beach.

It was the first time her family visited the beach, where she said, “simple moments became the greatest memories.”

“Watching the ocean, feeling the waves, playing in the sand and walking barefoot at sunset all reminded me of the beauty in slowing down,” she wrote.

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Robin Woods

Robin Woods, a Project Manager for Space Planning and Management with Duke Ophthalmology, has an early-July birthday that’s a day before that of her granddaughter, Adalyn. The two often celebrate their birthdays during beach trips. This year, while visiting Kure Beach, Woods snapped this photo of Adalyn enjoying her eighth birthday celebration.

“She is a huge Duke fan and wanted to have a ‘Duke’ blue birthday party this year,” Woods wrote.

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Azmen Johnson

In June, Azmen Johnson, a Program Coordinator with Duke University Hospital’s Violence Recovery Program, traveled to Italy to visit her younger brother, Destin, an Air Force Staff Sergeant stationed there with his wife and two children. For her birthday, Johnson got to visit Venice, and cruise the famous canals on a gondola, an experience she captured with an unforgettable photo.

“It was the trip of a lifetime, and I am glad to be able to spend that quality time in such a beautiful place,” Johnson said.

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Cory Krupp

During a visit to the small French town of Veigy-Foncenex with her husband and cousin, Cory Krupp, a Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy, captured a photo while hiking on a trail that passed through a field of vibrant sunflowers.

“Along this trail, you can hike from France to Switzerland in about 10 minutes!” Krupp wrote.

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