FirstHealth employee’s love of poetry results in newly published book

Raeford resident Charles Roberts has written a number of poems that have been published as a collection entitled “The Element of Satisfaction.” Robert is an operating room technician at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst.

PINEHURST – It wouldn’t be much of stretch to describe Raeford resident Charles Roberts as the modern-day equivalent of a Renaissance man – interested in many activities and successful at most.

Just 32 years old, this self-described workaholic likes to stay busy even when he’s away from his job as an operating room technician at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital. He moonlights in landscape work during the summer and works scores and keeps stats for a Little League basketball league with Moore County Parks and Recreation during the winter. A drummer since age 12, he now plays drums for his church, Holy Trinity in Raeford,

He also writes poetry.

Roberts’ first poetry collection, called “The Element of Satisfaction,” has just been published by PublishAmerica and is now available through its online book store at publishamerica.com. It will soon be available at Barnes & Noble book stores.

“It’s just something I started doing,” says Roberts, who wrote his first poem, about his mother, when he was in elementary school. “I walk by something and get inspiration. I scramble it around in my mind and go home and play with it.”

Roberts has also written plays and rap music. His poems cover “a little bit of everything,” he says – love, pain, “about life period.”

“I must say that I have done a lot of things, been a lot of places and seen a whole lot, so much that it would almost take a lifetime to tell,” he says in the product description for his book. “I would like each and every person to read my words so that you can get a visual of what’s in my mind.”

Roberts has worked at Moore Regional for 10 years, starting out in Central Transportation and then moving to the OR, as a support tech, six years ago. His supervisor in Central Transportation was Lee Harris, whose employees are often young men who eventually move into other jobs with FirstHealth.

Harris recalls Roberts as a “low-key, quiet young man” who was very respectful and easy to get along with.

“Charles was always willing to help out and was very supportive of others,” he says. “He shared with me that his mother was instrumental in his upbringing and he had a lot of things he wanted to do with his life and had every desire to do them. Charles is a fine young man, and I feel he will be successful in whatever he may choose to do. He certainly has my confidence and support.”
 
Always an active person, Roberts also enjoys sports – basketball, football and occasionally softball – and the pleasure he finds in athletics has transferred into his volunteer roles with FirstHealth’s “Hoops for Kids” fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Sandhills.

Not just satisfied to be an important member of the FirstHealth team, he is also a record-setting ticket salesman for the annual FirstHealth/physician basketball game. During his best year, he sold more than 600 tickets. His usual average is 300 or 400.

“Charles has been our top ticket-seller for the past two years in addition to playing on the health care community’s basketball team,” says Leslie Deane, administrative director of Planning and Marketing. “He’s a generous person and really cares about the kids at the Boys & Girls Club.”

Roberts has a special interest in the Boys & Girls Club, one that comes from personal experience and the desire to help children make the most of their lives.

“Their lives can be so much better,” he says. “I grew up with a single parent, and I know how hard it is to survive. It makes me feel good that I can make a difference, because every little bit helps.”