Why I Give... Dr. Donald Nyquist (DDS 1975)
In this regular feature of M Dentistry magazine, we interview alumni who make financial gifts to the dental school.
Donald Nyquist had no intention of becoming a dentist until someone suggested it during his undergraduate years at Central Michigan University. His only definitive future plan at that point was to return to his scenic hometown of Escanaba on Lake Michigan in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He started initially as a music major at CMU, but switched to biology and chemistry because he figured there would be more job options in Escanaba for someone with a science degree.
Donald Nyquist
“Someone at Central said I should become a dentist rather than an MD because as a dentist you never get called in the middle of the night. Well, that was wrong,” he laughs, “because I spent more time in emergency rooms in my 40 years of practice than most MDs do. But that was fine.”
Today, Nyquist is in his fourth year of retirement after practicing general dentistry in Escanaba for 41 years. As he thinks back on his time at the U-M dental school, he remembers it as a rigorous 40 hours a week, but he loved it. Beyond his dental education, being on a campus and in a large college town with so many opportunities and so much diversity was an invaluable experience.
“When I started in 1971, the new dental school building had just opened,” he recalls. “At that time there was a lot going on in the world. There was Vietnam, there were protests on campus. Being from the UP, everything is pretty much the same. But down there, I was meeting people from all over the place. It was such a diverse class. I had two roommates with totally different backgrounds. I met a lot of interesting people, including the patients. Just the diversity is what I remember. And having all of the things to do. I got to see a lot of concerts and plays that I would never have seen otherwise. Being from a small town, it was exciting for me.”
Once he graduated with his DDS degree in 1975, he returned to Escanaba, where five generations of his family have lived, and hired a builder to construct a dental office. “It took about three months and I opened the door and I was busy ever since,” he said. At that time, state law prevented dentists and other professionals from advertising their services, so word of mouth was the only way to let the community know there was a new dentist in town. “One of the reporters at the local newspaper wrote an article about ‘Local kid becomes a dentist’ – I had nothing to do with it – and I got reprimanded by the dental society because the article went in the paper.” Fortunately, his business grew immediately and he never needed to advertise during his four decades of practicing.
General dentistry was a good choice given the geography of the UP. Because of the relatively few larger communities, patients might have to travel 100 or 200 miles to be treated by a dental specialist. “So we did a lot of everything – whatever needed to be done,” he said. He treated some of his patients his entire career, adding their children and grandchildren as patients over the years. He worked a lot with patients who had special needs and children in group homes in the area. “When I go shopping now, I have a lot of people come up and say they miss me and say, ‘Go back to work!’ which I don’t want to do.” He and his wife Kathie, who is also from a family that has lived in Escanaba for five generations, are finding lots of things to do in retirement.
With benefit of hindsight, Nyquist reflects on how the U-M School of Dentistry was the foundation for the rest of his life. He has been a loyal, consecutive donor of financial gifts to the school over the years. “When I arrived there, to be honest I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it. My parents were unemployed at the time,” he said. “I got down there and the school was so helpful in finding me grants and scholarships and loans that I feel I have to give that back now when I can afford to.”
One of his most recent gifts was designated for the Dentistry Scholarship Fund. “I used that fund when I was at the school, so I’m just trying to repay that because I know there are a lot of people who can’t afford dental school. Especially nowadays, it has become so expensive.”
Later, after reflecting on his first conversation about his connection to the dental school, Nyquist wrote in a note that he was thankful for the memories brought back by the reminiscing. “I again realized how much I got out of my education at U-M,” he said. Nyquist knows his success in life is directly related to where he was educated, even though like many alumni of many universities he hasn’t necessarily gone back to campus much over the years. “Even though I have never been back to Ann Arbor or Central Michigan, I have fond memories of both places,” he wrote. “Life can’t get any better.”
