Eight School of Dentistry alumni nominated for TAGD’s 2024 Texas Academy Awards

Eight UTHealth Houston School of Dentistry alumni are among the nominees for the Texas Academy of General Dentistry’s 2024 Texas Academy Awards, with four nominated for each the Texas Dentist of the Year™ and Texas New Dentist of the Year.

TAGD will present the awards during the Texas Academy Awards dinner on Friday, Sept. 20, in the Sheraton Austin Georgetown Hotel and Conference Center in Georgetown, Texas.

Nominees for each award are chosen throughout the state by local dental societies and components of the Texas Dental Association and TAGD. Each component or society may nominate only one candidate for each award. Previous winners are not eligible.

Since 1976, the academy has selected one dentist to honor as the Texas Dentist of the Year™, the highest honor a Texas dentist can receive. Nominees may be from any specialty and do not have to be Academy of General Dentistry members.

School of Dentistry nominees for the 2024 Texas Dentist of the Year™ include:

• Col (Ret) Wendell A. Edgin, DDS ’80 (San Antonio District Dental Society)
• Kathy L. O’Keefe, DDS ’85, MS (Greater Houston Dental Society)
• Courtni Nicole Tello, BSDH ’10, DDS ’19 (Ninth District Dental Society)
• Karen A. Walters, DDS ’78 (Houston Academy of General Dentistry)

The Texas New Dentist of the Year Award began in 2009 and recognizes emerging leaders in the field of dentistry. Nominees must be general dentists who graduated from dental school within the last seven years and have been AGD members for the last two years.

Alumni nominated for the 2024 Texas New Dentist of the Year include:

• Gilberto Garcia, Jr., DDS ’19 (Ninth District Dental Society)
• Austin Green, DDS ’17 (Central Texas Dental Society)
• John Andrew Loiselle, DDS ’19 (El Paso Academy of General Dentistry)
• Homero Javier Vela-Gomez, DDS ’20 (Laredo Dental Society)

School of Dentistry alumni have been the recipients of both awards in recent years. Tanya Sue Maestas, DDS ’18, was the 2023 Texas New Dentist of the Year, joining Summer C. Ketron, DDS ’11; Katie Sowa Stuchlik, DDS ’15; and Lindsey Wendt, DDS ’15, who received the award in 2018, 2020, and 2022, respectively. Richard C. Black, DDS ’76, MS ’78, was the 2021 Texas Dentist of the Year™, and John A. Valenza, DDS ’81, dean and distinguished teaching professor, claimed the state’s highest honor for a Texas dentist in 2019.