The former CEO of St. Charles Madras and St. Charles Prineville has left the health system to take the helm of a small hospital in Idaho.

Jeanie Gentry started as the CEO of Mountain View Hospital — the hospital that would later become St. Charles Madras — in August 2011. She’s now the CEO of the Steele Memorial Medical Center, an 18-bed hospital in Salmon, Idaho.

In an interview Monday, Gentry said her triplets just finished eighth grade, and she wanted them to start high school in a smaller community. Salmon has a population of about 3,000 people.

“It seemed like a good time for our family,” she said.

JoDee Tittle, St. Charles’ director of ancillary and support services, has taken over Gentry’s duties while the health system works to hire her replacement. Joe Sluka, St. Charles’ CEO, said Monday he expects to announce that hire within the next month to month and a half.

At St. Charles, Gentry played a key role in allowing the Madras hospital to become a part of St. Charles Health System in 2013, St. Charles spokeswoman Lisa Goodman wrote in an email. Her duties expanded to include the top post at the Prineville hospital, then called Pioneer Memorial Hospital, when the health system restructured its administration in late 2013. Pioneer Memorial Hospital officially became St. Charles Prineville in September with the opening of the new, 60,000-square-foot replacement hospital roughly a mile northeast of the former facility, built in 1950.

Goodman wrote that Gentry has been instrumental in the planning for the new Prineville hospital, as well as in the $16 million renovation and expansion of the Madras hospital currently underway.

Reflecting on her time in Madras and Prineville, Gentry said the communities are similar in size, but different in their demographics and personalities.

“They’re both wonderful communities,” she said. “I will truly miss the people there. Those hospitals serve a vital role for keeping people well and taking care of people when they get hurt or they’re having problems.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0304,

tbannow@bendbulletin.com

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. An earlier version of this article misidentified the direction of the new hospital from the old hospital.

The Bulletin regrets the error.