Dr. Debra (Boese) Horst, a 2007 graduate of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU), received the highest honor a dental student can achieve at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) of Virginia Commonwealth University upon graduating in May 2011.<\/p>\n
Dr. Horst was elected to Omicron Kappa Upsilon (OKU), a society that was \u201cestablished to promote and recognize scholarship and character among students of dentistry,\u201d according to its website.<\/p>\n
\u201cDebbie was a stellar undergraduate student at EMU,\u201d said Dr. Roman J. Miller, EMU professor of biology.\u00a0 \u201cShe was focused and committed in her academic studies as an undergraduate. As a dental student, she distinguished herself among her peers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. J. Robert Eshleman, EMU class of 1956, has been on the dental school faculty at MCV for more than five decades and served as a mentor to Horst.\u00a0Eshleman received the same honor when he graduated from MCV in 1960.<\/p>\n
“A maximum of 12 percent of the senior class can be selected for this honor,” said \u00a0Eshleman.\u00a0“Debbie finished fourth in her dental class [out] of 90.\u201d In transitioning to paperless clinical records at MCV, Horst gained the reputation of being a trouble-shooter with the new computer-based records, added Eshleman.<\/p>\n
“The induction into this society meant a great deal to me because I felt like I worked very hard, but also because of another person in the society,” Horst said.\u00a0 “Dr. Eshleman was a great mentor. We were always amazed at how our paths had paralleled\u00a0even though\u00a0we had gone through the same process [at EMU] at different times.”<\/p>\n
Honorees are selected from the top 25 percent of the class and must be endorsed by three-quarters of the voting faculty members, who themselves are OKU members, explained Eshleman.<\/p>\n
Horst is now associated with the dental practice of Dr. Douglas Wright in Harrisonburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"