TVMA Shares a Laugh with the 2008 Equine Practitioner of the Year
by Lindsey Oechsle
Among the Leon Russells, Mother Theresas and Willie Nelsons of the world lies a vast array of genuine small-town, uncelebrated heroes whose names may not be of the household kind. Quite possibly one of my favorite aspects of the work I do at TVMA is the challenge and honor of telling these people’s stories.
Success, prosperity, and great levels of professional accomplishment can sometimes hinder an individual’s humility. It has been known to boost people’s pride and make them jaded. Though Bo Brock has reached and surpassed countless personal and professional accomplishments, it certainly has not affected his spirit, motivations, kindness or humanity.
As a reporter—and a human being for that matter—I have lived under the belief that there is a wealth of information about one’s character that can only be obtained through physical face-to-face encounters. While we do not naturally approach human interactions as card-carrying behaviorists, there is always something gained when observation is combined with communication. Posture, eye contact, colors, and smells tell stories of their own. What do their hands look like? How starched are their clothes?
When I caught up via telephone with TVMA 2008 Equine Practitioner of the Year, Dr. Bo Brock, I had somewhat of a journalistic epiphany. I did not feel as if I were speaking into a telephone receiver—I was having real, genuine human interaction, seemingly face-to-face.
He started off firing questions first: Where did I go to school? What was my degree in? And how did I get this job anyway? After he had sufficiently learned about my background, I reminded him that this was supposed to be an interview about him, not me. He explained that he is a latent anthropologist, and I suppose he is. When I turn the questions on him, any expectation of a conventional interview is quickly disregarded.
TVMA: Tell me about you and your personal history.
“Okay, well let’s see. I went to Baylor and majored in Anthropology and Journalism,” he repeats. I pause, somewhat confused and he follows his delivery with a surprisingly comforting belly laugh, “It’s a small world, isn’t it?”
TVMA: I see we have a lot in common.
He quickly dismisses this. “You’re an adventurer aren’t you? I’m not much of an adventurer. I’m not like you. I wish I was, but I’m not. I’m a homebody. I was born in 1963. How old were you then?”
TVMA: Nonexistent.
More laughter.
Here is where the epiphany happens. This is not a question-answer session, but an unexplainable human interaction. I may not be sitting across from him, but I feel I may as well be. Not only can I hear his concentration, but I can see it in his brow. Of course I can hear his smile, yet even more vividly the way his face comfortably creases around his eyes as he smiles. This is in no way instigated by a conscious or concerted effort to imagine, but naturally developed in a conversation with a man who has seemingly no hang-ups, insecurities, walls, or judgment—just open, honest curiosity, a great sense of humor, and a desire for connection.
Dr. Brock may not call himself an adventurer, but his past and his accomplishments seem to tell a different story. He grew up in Amarillo on a ranch and his veterinary dreams all started as a kid. They had cows and horses on the farm, and one pig. All animals on the property, or elsewhere, were Brock’s, because he was the one that took care of them. When he was 12 years old, his pig became pregnant. Dr. Brock watched as the sow had one of her babies, and then prolapsed. Brock’s hero, his grandfather Pawpaw, said “Well that’s it for her”. When the young Brock looked to his hero for a solution, his grandfather returned from the house with Mawmaw’s sewing thread.
“He sewed that thing up and didn’t even get the rest of the babies out of there. Of course the next day, she was just dead, and I just got mad at him and said, ‘Why didn’t you do more than that?’” To which the grandfather replied, “Oh it’s just a pig”
“I’m gonna be a veterinarian one of these days,” promised Brock. “And I’m gonna be able to fix that.”
“Turdhead,” replied his hero, “You can’t sit still long enough to go to vet school”.
Dr. Brock surely proved him wrong. He began college at West Texas State in Canyon, TX. Where he met his wife Kerri on the first day of their first class. The two were married in 1987, one year after he started toward his dream by enrolling in veterinary school at Texas A&M University. In June 1990 Brock graduated with his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. You can sense his sense of pride and tradition as he mentions the accomplishments of his classmates. Companion Animal Practitioner of the Year, Dr. Sherri Youngblood, Chair of the Board, Dr. Lori Teller, and TVMA President, Dr. Anmarie Macfarland were all graduates in Dr. Brock’s class.
“It was kind of a big deal for the class of 90 this year,” he adds. They’ve taken TVMA leadership and recognition with a clean sweep the year, although he describes it modestly as a small impact.
After Brock graduated he and his wife went to Clarendon, TX and practiced for about a year and a half and relocated to Lamesa in January 1992. He was only 27 when he moved to Lamesa to buy his own veterinary practice.
“It was pretty scary I must say. I had to borrow money, and it seemed like all the money in the world at the time. I was scared to death. I had a kid and a pregnant wife, but we came here to Lamesa and we didn’t know one soul in this town. I just wanted to be in West Texas, cause that’s where I grew up. There were only two practices for sale, and I wanted to have my own gig.”
“I’d say I was lucky because when I got here. I was just fixing to turn 28. I hired two people at the time, and they’re still with me.” His wife has always done the books, and still does to this day, and he still works with the office manager and technician, that he hired when the clinic opened. “I feel kinda like a turtle on the post, he admits. “You’ve heard that story?”
For those of you who aren’t familiar, the story (of which there are likely several variations) goes like this: If you’re walking through the country and you see a turtle on a fencepost, it’s fair to assume that he had some help getting up there.
Dr. Brock credits his family and his coworkers as the blessings and support over the last 16 years that got him up here where he is on that post. “They’ve probably wanted to pluck my hair out several times and tar and feather me,” he chuckles, “but they’re still here, and they’re a blessing.”
When he bought the clinic, it was a cell barn, and then they converted it into a true clinic in 1992. Today, Brock veterinary Clinic operates under a staff of 4 veterinarians and 15 or 20 office workers and technicians.
Kerri and Bo are not the only Brocks working in the clinic. Together, they have 3 daughters, Emili, Abbi and Kimmi, and the girls lend a hand as well. We discuss the option of Dr. Brock going by ‘Boi’ or Bi’ but quickly move on. He wants to know my favorite musical artist, but he would like to guess. His guess is Nirvana, and I tell him I prefer Bob Dylan. We obviously still have a lot to learn about each other. His favorite artist is Bebo Norman, an acoustic Christian/faith-based singer songwriter.
Dr. Brock is a self-proclaimed church and family guy. It’s hard to interlace a high time-consuming career with that stuff, but we’ve been pretty blessed to be able to do it. “I’ve been pretty lucky.” His three daughters come up to the clinic and work with him, which is a nice option to spend time with them outside of basketball games and their own busy lifestyles.
He’s not sure if they aspire to follow in dad’s footsteps because they go back and forth on it. In the summer, when he takes them out on late night colic surgeries until 4 a.m. and they have to be back at work at 8:00 the next morning, he thinks they reconsider. His eldest daughter will attend West Texas State this fall, yet he’s relatively sure she’ll be majoring in Fun with a minor in Party.
I ask Dr. Brock why he didn’t choose stand-up comedy for a profession, as he seems to have a knack for being the funny guy. He laughs of course. “I just think it’s a whole lot easier to laugh than it is to be angry. My dad was a funny guy. My granddad was a funny guy. Maybe it’s genetic, but it’s definitely a point of view. I like being able to go into a situation that’s almost catastrophic, but when you get done and nobody died you can sit around and laugh about it.”
He wishes many things for his daughters, but he hopes most that they will be able to find the humor and happiness in all of life’s complexities.
Dr. Brock displays a lot of character when he speaks. He goes on for a while, explaining that what makes a good doctor as opposed to a bad doctor requires equally two abilities: To be knowledgeable about how to properly treat the patient, and to be able to communicate and relate to the patient’s owner.
“You could talk about twelve cranial nerves all day, but when your client drives a truck for a living, it’s not gonna make a difference. Just talk to them in their language and make them smile. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. If your horse is sick, I’m worried about it just like you are, and I’m gonna talk to you about it until you don’t have no more questions.” He pauses. “That was a double negative,” he almost apologizes, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Dr. Brock thus far, it’s that he’s not the type to be sorry for who he is, and there is certainly no reason to be.
“I like double negatives,” he admits. “I think double negatives add a charm to almost all conversations, but boy you get around some people and they think you’re ignorant for using double negatives.” Another pause. “What color is your hair?” he asks me.
He tells me that he has a ‘Fu Manchu thingy’—which he describes as a mustache and not quite a beard—but he adds that it covers up a lot of ugly on him. He also wears glasses, which he recently changed to bifocals, which puts him in the old man category.
“Oh man, I don’t know if you can do bifocals and double negatives,” I warn jokingly. “That might be pushing it.”
We’re having so much fun together, that I believe we’re laughing more than we are going through the motions of asking or answering questions. This daily dose of humor is not for show—it is where Dr. Brock lives. He writes our journal’s regular Funny Bone column among other publications and regularly gives of his time to deliver humorous speeches at conferences and colleges. He doesn’t have much free time, so I ask him why he chooses to spend so much of it doing these things. There is no pause this time.
“Veterinary medicine is going through a transition right now. James Harriett wrote a book back in the eighties, and when I was applying to vet school there were thousands of people applying. Somehow it’s just kind of lost its luster, and I really don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it’s the amount of work it takes to get in, or what, but we just have to maintain a positive attitude about it and try to deliver that to the world to keep it going.”
