Small Towns, Big Hearts:

Professional Graduates Return to Rural Roots

By Randy Weckma

For more than a century, the UK College of Agriculture’s reputation for excellence has been built on educating young people to become farmers and agribusiness leaders. Recently, it has added to its prestige a reputation for preparing students well for professional school— doctors, lawyers, and dentists, many of whom return to rural Kentucky to practice their professions. We highlight three of these former ag students who are making their marks in professional practices in rural Kentucky.

It’s a long way from Hartford, Kentucky to the nearest opera, but for Dr. Leticia “Tiche” Tucker, M.D., a back yard cricket symphony accompanied by a
firefly light show is really more enjoyable than going to the opera anyway. And she can savor the cricket songs every summer night by just stepping outside her back door.

Dr. Tucker (College of Agriculture 1990-1994, ag biotech) is among a growing number of College of Agriculture students who are using their undergraduate educations and experience as springboards to professional school before returning to rural Kentucky to ply their trades. Dr. Tucker will begin her career in Hartford, a small town in Ohio County, in August.

For Dr. Tucker, the science aspects of the ag biotechnology program helped her score high on the medical school entrance examinations. (Dr. Tucker admits she still hasn’t finished her B.S. degree— she entered medical school shy just a few undergraduate courses.) She was accepted into Ross University Medical School and trained in New York City where she completed her M.D. degree before starting her residency in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But she learned more than just science in the College of Agriculture. She learned life skills that will allow her to become a successful small-town doc.

“Because of my agriculture background, I was more well rounded and practical about approaches to patients and colleagues than my classmates who came from other backgrounds. And I was the only one in my class who could talk about rural life comfortably without being condescending,” she said.

In addition, she said, working with animals through Block and Bridle paid off in a quirky sort of way. “I find my animal husbandry skills very helpful when I’m trying to look into toddlers’ ears, especially when they want no part of it.”

Why a rural practice, when it’s well recognized that rural physicians work more hours per week for less money? A rural practice’s rewards in lifestyle are more important than the monetary rewards for people like Dr. Tucker.

“I chose a rural practice because the values of the rural people are my values. I love Kentuckians and no other place in the world than Kentucky would do,” the Shelby County native said.

“Increasingly our College of Agriculture is being recognized as a place to study science. We’ve always been known for preparing well our students who go on to veterinary school, but now students are finding our College is excellent for preparing students for medical and pharmacy schools,” said Joe Davis, the College’s associate dean for instruction.

The increasing number of students entering medical school programs directly from the undergraduate program is a compelling witness to the college’s preparation in the sciences, because medical schools have recently preferred slightly older students to fresh graduates. The fact that the College’s new grads can compete for medical school seats attests to the strength of their academic preparation, as well as the students’ maturity.

Medicine
Leticia Tucker

In addition to preparing future rural doctors well— and many do return to rural areas— the College also has a reputation for preparing students to become attorneys. And the practice of rural and small-town law requires special skills. It’s not like Perry Mason at all and College of Agriculture students seem particularly adept at working in small towns.

Small-town lawyers often work alone, or in small firms. Because of this, they must be general practitioners, which includes divorce, estates, criminal defense representation, real estate, and litigation for all manner of court cases. Brian N. Thomas has elected to practice law in a small town. His office, like those of many small-town and rural lawyers, is located on Main Street, across from the Clark County Courthouse in Winchester, Kentucky (population 16,000), about 25 minutes east of Lexington. Winchester is the kind of place where every birth is celebrated and every death is mourned because each event affects somebody you know.

The Winchester native admits he had no intention of attending the UK College of Agriculture; the thought had never crossed his mind when he graduated from high school in 1987. However, the county Extension agent at that time, Paul Deaton, advised him that some scholarship money was offered for qualified students in the College of Agriculture. That convinced Thomas to consider the College. And he’s glad he did.

As an agricultural economics major with an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco scholarship, Thomas learned that the College was a hands-on, learn-as-you-go place. By the second day, he was helping two College of Agriculture faculty members in agricultural economics (Jerry Skees and David Debertin) conduct a survey about farmers’ and the public’s perception of burley tobacco. Because of his involvement with that project, he had the opportunity to present a paper to an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco seminar, an experience that helped him hone his presentation skills, a benefit to a lawyer who really does argue cases in court.
After completing his B.S. degree in agriculture, Thomas attended the University of Louisville Law School, graduating with a Juris Doctor degree in 1994. Once he passed the Kentucky and Indiana bars, Thomas practiced as an attorney in the risk management division of an inland river transportation company in Indiana, a company whose cargo was often agricultural commodities.

After three years, Thomas moved back home to pursue his career in small-town law with the firm of Grant, Rose and Pumphrey in Winchester.
“A small-town practice lets you interact closely with your clients— including lots of people involved in agriculture and agribusiness. You see clients— and clients’ opponents— every day at the grocery store and the like. Small-town law lets you work with a variety of cases from probate to contracts, corporations to litigation. I know that Thomas Wolfe said ‘you can’t go home again.’ Obviously, he never lived in Winchester, Kentucky,” he said.

Thomas said his undergraduate program in agricultural economics prepared him well for life as a small-town attorney. “I use knowledge that I gained and information that I learned as an undergraduate every day. Because many of my clients are farmers or have farm backgrounds, I draw on my College of Agriculture experiences daily,” he said.

Brian Thomas
Law

When Wesley Porter arrived at the University of Kentucky in 1990
as a first-year student, his goal was to earn a degree in animal sciences and perhaps even a doctorate in the field at some later date. As with many people, times change and so do their minds.

After receiving his B.S. degree in 1994, Wes returned home to tiny Gracey, Kentucky (population 92) and farmed for a short time with his parents, Kenneth and Sally Porter, before taking a job with Carl S. Akey, Inc. in Ohio. He worked as a nutrition technician for the swine nutrition consulting company for 18 months before deciding to make a career switch. He toyed with the idea of getting a doctorate in animal sciences, but realized that that career would not get him very close to home, which was one of his life goals. However, a major career switch might allow him to move back closer to Gracey.

“My uncle, Tommy Porter (who’s also a UK ag college graduate) is a dentist in Hopkinsville, so the idea of becoming a dentist was something that I had been exposed to and considered from time to time,” Porter said. It was now time for Porter to make that decision for good.

He applied for a seat at University of Kentucky’s dentistry school in the spring of 1996 for entrance that fall. He was readily accepted and unlike many other students in the class of 2000, he was not required to complete any more classes before he started; his B.S. in animal sciences had provided him with the scientific background required for entrance into dentistry school.
When Porter— now Dr. Porter— finished his dentistry degree, he was ready to go back home.

“I bought an existing practice from a dentist who had been practicing general dentistry for more than 30 years. I see lots of familiar faces as patients and have gained many new ones who’ve decided to change dentists because they knew me and my family,” Porter said. He does admit that some of them chide him for being a dentist, saying that would have expected him to work with cows and not with people’s teeth.

“My agriculture education is invaluable; the people I met in undergraduate school have become lifelong friends. I even met my wife, Lori Thomas, there,” said Porter, who became a father for the first time last year.
And even though Dr. Porter maintains a promising practice in Hopkinsville, he hasn’t given up his ag school roots: he’s still active on the family farm in Gracey, helping with the crops and raising sheep and cattle of his own. u

Wesley Porter
Dentistry

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