Encountering Karrie Fairbrother at a health fair, or her office, or even on the street can be an energizing experience.

She’s never without her arsenal of skin-protection materials, and one simple question is likely to result in a shower of pamphlets, brochures, several samples of sunscreen in different strengths and a new or renewed appreciation for the dangers of spending too long in the sun.

Would you expect less from the president of a national association of nurses dedicated to the health of people’s largest bodily organ, their skin?

A military brat growing up, Fairbrother, 58, has spent her entire career in nursing. Her earliest on-the-job training came at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing, where she practiced on patients suffering from serious injuries and exotic viruses brought home from Vietnam.

Her career and enire life turned in 1987 when her husband, a dentist, was diagnosed with advanced melanoma.

“I can only describe the feeling when you find out that somebody has a disease — like that of gray mist, of feeling like you’re about to faint,” she said. “We really got to know from the other side of the stick, and going from being a care provider to a care recipient is no fun.”

The cancer claimed his life a little more than two years later.

It was as if Fairbrother fought through the bitter sorrow of losing her husband by redoubling and refocusing her nursing efforts.

“I became a melonoma specialist because of my husband’s illness,” she said. She moved to Montana within a year, “and I knew I would do something to make sure there was awareness. I started reading the Dermatology Nurses’ Association journal and studying everything that came my way.”

She worked with her brother, dermatologist Jeffry Goldes, before becoming a wellness consultant at St. Peter’s Hospital in the mid-1990s.

Today, she works in a number of areas in the hospital — including diabetes and childbirth education — but for more than a decade, she’s brought one constant message to every class she’s taught, every patient she’s met.

“One of my duties was skin-cancer prevention, and I will say it was my passion to make a difference,” she said. “That if somebody could be aware (they might) avoid the consequences that I knew too well.

“And I taught (hospital) staff and I taught nursing home staff, people that saw people. I did some work with parenting classes, and part of that would always be skin-cancer prevention, what they needed to do to protect their babies.”

She acknowleges that skin protection can be a tough sell even in Montana, where summer is short but elevations are high and the sun is bright. Also, many people arrange their schedules around an outdoor lifestyle of skiing in the winter, fishing, floating and hiking in the summer, and hunting in the fall.

“It isn’t that I want people to be hermits in the house,” she said. “Everyone wants to go out there and feel that sun on our face. It’s basically about being aware of your skin, the fact that your skin is such an important organ, and that you let somebody know if you see change.

“And that’s pretty much been my mantra for years. The only difference is now I want to make sure we start earlier and have learned more about prevention.”

It’s also challenging because the results of her efforts and of Montanans efforts to protect their skin won’t be seen for many years. Someone who sunburns today won’t have skin cancer tomorrow, Fairbrother said, so it can be a challenge to convince young people that long days in the sun can be dangerous.

Still, she said, a shift in the way people think about their skin is possible.

“I challenge kids,” she said. “I tell them their parents did a big cultural change in wearing seatbelts. I challenge the kids to be the difference in sun protection, and we talk about all the different ways.”

Thanks in part to her tireless efforts, Fairbrother was recently named president of the Dermatology Nurses’ Association, a national organization.

Her goal is to make attention to skin care — from sunscreen to careful awareness of moles and other marks that may be changing shape or color — second nature for Montanans.

“It’s a big change to go from one-on-one (patient care) to policy,” she said. “And I would tell you in my heart at the end of the day that I love my one-to-one experience.

“But I also feel priveleged that I get to reach out through the nurses in the DNA, and I wouldn’t be here without their mentorship. It’s a wonderful experience to work with these people. You’re constantly learning and growing.”

Fairbrother’s passion for her field is evident in the enthusiasm she brings to the job, even after three decades.

“I do feel priveleged to have a lot of energy; I love what I do,” she said. “I don’t know anybody that doesn’t want to have the tools they need to be in control of their own lives. Most of us don’t want to be in the car watching somebody else hiking Mount Rainier. We want to be able to do it.

“So whatever it takes, but I always give them skin cancer prevention information.”

Reporter John Harrington: 447-4080 or john.harrington@helenair.com