January, 2003

In Memory of Tom Creekmore

Dr. Larry White

I first met Tom in 1966 just as he had finished his orthodontic training and I had begun my own. I recognized immediately that he had the most unusual intellect, intuition and passion about orthodontics that I had ever seen or heard. He had an infectious quality about his knowledge and personality, and I was never free of his influence from that day forward.

Right now all of us struggle to find some meaning in his premature death. Nevertheless, Holy Writ reminds us countless of times about how undeserved agony can ultimately become redemptive, and my prayer is that the zeal and devotion Tom displayed daily toward his family, friends, patients and colleagues will remind us frequently of the optimism that allowed him to live and learn and teach with such excitement and expectation.

I have never known anyone with more intellectual curiosity or scholarly allegiance to the truth than Tom. He could never accommodate the notion of dentists generally or orthodontists specifically abandoning their scientific training to endorse the latest professional fad without critical assessment. No one knew this fidelity to candor and intellectual integrity better than I. I didn’t always enjoy those times he called me for curative chats. But without fail they enlarged my understanding and diminished my ignorance; and I always profited from them.

Tom hung like a celestial North Star that gave point and direction to our professional lives. We ran to him for counsel when we failed and eagerly shared with him our triumphs because he had the unique ability to enlarge our victories and dull our defeats.

All of life fascinated Tom, and people eagerly responded to his authenticity and humor. He and Leslie made fast friends all over the world because people experienced their warmth and devotion for one another, and this made them natural companions for those who value spousal love, compassion and commitment.

Tom was greatly esteemed by his professional colleagues, and they honored his knowledge by asking him to present programs all over the world. His many contributions in diagnosis and treatment planning, therapy, product development and his general orthodontic understanding were unsurpassed. He was easily one of the five most knowledgeable orthodontists in the world today, and his indifference to those great skills made them all the more impressive.

Half measures never appealed to Tom, and he lived his life with an intensity that others could only envy but never duplicate. His wit warmed as well as illuminated those who called him friend, and his positive influence extended far beyond the confines of Houston, Texas through his writings. They are and shall always be considered orthodontic classics.

In my own feeble way, I have tried to capture what made Tom so special to all of us, but words can never seize the rich essence of a man like him. In the presence of his remarkable reputation, I feel somewhat muted like the great Italian Renaissance poet, Bembo, who was asked to write the epitaph for the inimitable Raphael. He said simply, “He who is here is Raphael.” Nothing more was needed because his genius would endure through the ages. He who is here is Tom Creekmore.