Many parents have to coax, prod, and plead with their children to brush their teeth. But there was none of that last spring when Jeannie Petty gave toothbrushes to more than 500 Mayan children and demonstrated the correct way to brush to the crowd of eager learners. Fulfilling a dream she’d had since she was 8 years old, the 2006 UTHSC College of Allied Health Sciences dental hygiene graduate spent a week in Belize on a medical–dental mission serving the Mayan population. Petty remembers watching her dad, a dentist, depart on annual mission trips to Belize when she was a child.
Dr. Mario Ramirez is part of UT Health Science Center history. As a medical student in the 1950s, he fondly recalls Ma Hamilton’s boarding house on South Pauline, a place where you could dance to a nickelodeon and drink a beer. Ramirez is also a Texan, and, as he likes to say, “from the best of both worlds: orange and white UTHSC in Memphis and orange and white UTHSC in Austin, Texas, where the T stands for Texas.” Now 81 years old, he remembers his journey away from—and back to—his Texas home. It was a journey of inspiration and love.
June Montgomery, who served UTHSC for 37 years before retiring in 1973, passed away on February 25, 2007, at the age of 99. As director of the first UT alumni office in Memphis, he will be remembered for his style of stepping out from behind the desk and interacting with students.
