Gabe Stark
The Trenton Telegraph

Jerry Doerhoff has returned to lead Sunnyview Nursing Home as its administrator, bringing with him more than 25 years of experience in nursing home administration. Doerhoff previously served as Sunnyview’s administrator from November 2019 through February 2022 and was rehired in October 2025 after being contacted by the board.

“I have been the administrator here previously for 2.5 years, and got to retirement age and decided I needed to retire,” Doerhoff shared. “The board contacted me at the end of the year and asked if I would be interested in coming back.”

A Missouri native, Doerhoff is from central Missouri and keeps a house in Jefferson City, though he has worked at facilities throughout the state.

“I grew up in a little bitty town of less than 300 people, 30 miles south of Jefferson City. Saint Elizabeth. I went to x-ray school and worked in x-ray for 20 years. My oldest brother was a regional for a nursing home company and asked me to come to work at one of their facilities. I started as administrator.”

Doerhoff’s career in long-term care has been marked by a deep respect for the elderly.

“I’ve always kind of enjoyed being around the elderly. I think they have fascinating stories to tell if you take the time to listen.”

Reflecting on his previous tenure at Sunnyview, Doerhoff recalls the difficult days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think the hardest thing for me was to see people get sick and at the beginning of COVID, it was more likely that you would not survive. You couldn’t allow family members to come in and visit. CMS would not allow it,” he said. “That was very difficult. We had to do whatever we could to give them as much contact as possible.”

Since returning, Doerhoff has focused on staff morale and recruitment, citing staffing as the facility’s biggest challenge.

“Right now, our biggest struggle is staffing. We have, just for the new year, a new wage scale, which will give our staff here significant raises. We were fortunate with the last election that they raised the tax levy, so we’ll get more.”

He is optimistic the pay increases will help Sunnyview become more competitive and less reliant on agency staff.

“With the new wage scale, we should get help in here. I think we’re more than competitive. We are competing with the other nursing home down the street, the hospital, multiple nursing homes in Chillicothe, the prison. Lots of places looking for nurses.”

Doerhoff also hopes to reestablish Sunnyview as a clinical site for nursing students.

“The nursing school will send students over to spend some time here, kind of learn clinical. It gives us a chance to say you should consider long-term care because you get to take care of residents, particularly for an LPN.”

He credits the staff for being one of highlights of what makes Sunnyview work.

“I thank our patient care, I think we do a very good job. We can always use more staff, but I think we’ve got some very dedicated workers.”

Looking ahead, Doerhoff wants to build Sunnyview’s reputation.

“I want us to build our reputation as being the best nursing home in this area. So if we are, we can pull people from town around,” he said. “We want to be more involved with the cities in Grundy County that are outside of Trenton. Too often they just look at what they can do in Trenton, but we need to be involved with the whole county, since we’re the county nursing home.”

Doerhoff summed up his philosophy simply:

“Resident care has to be the top priority. If you take good care of the residents, everything else takes care of itself.”

He hopes the community will recognize Sunnyview’s commitment.

“I expect a resident to be well cared for. I want our reputation to show that, and I think we do a good job. We’re not perfect. Sometimes things don’t go the way they should, but we do, I think, better than most facilities. So this is a good place to live and a good place to work.”