Kansas
Local Hero: Dr. W.

“In a small-town practice, you live or die by your reputation,” says Dr. W. Twenty-five years ago, the Arkansas native, who was in dental school in Kansas City, bought a practice in Hiawatha, Kan., a town with five stop lights and a population just under 3,500. Today, Dr. W.’s reputation is excellent, judging by his thriving family-oriented practice. The peer review chairman for the Kansas Dental Association, Dr. W. has been working with DDS since 2000. Like other DDS volunteers, he praises the organization’s efficiency and points out that “having the lab fees taken care of is tremendous.” His most recent DDS client was a single mother with two children who was working her way through college as a prison security officer. “She had never had her teeth cleaned,” recalls Dr. W. “She had a huge overbite, bad periodontal disease, and no income.” By putting her in contact with DDS, Dr. W. was able to make her an upper and a lower partial, clean her teeth, and put in some fillings. His grateful client wrote a letter to the local paper, publicly thanking Dr. W. and his staff for her new smile and her new attitude. “There’s no better feeling in the world than helping people,” says Dr. W. “It’s better than anything else you can do.”