YOUNGSTOWN Clinic carries on memory of slain man

Some 39 Legacy pupils benefited from a CWRU community service project.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR HEALTH WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Something good has come from the May 9 shooting death of Youngstown native Norman E. Wallace at Case Western Reserve University.
The Wallace shooting was the link that resulted in a team of Case doctors' and student doctors' coming to Legacy Academy for Leaders and the Arts to provide free dental examinations, cleaning, sealing of teeth, and referrals to local dentists for treatment if necessary.
Wallace, 30, once attended Calvary Christian Academy, of which Bishop Norman L. Wagner, Wallace's uncle and surrogate father, and many of Legacy's faculty were a part. Bishop Wagner is chairman of the Legacy board of directors.
Wallace, one of 11 children, was an MBA graduate student with a 4.0 grade point average at Case. He was in the university's Peter B. Lewis Building when he was killed.
"In the emergency room on the night of May 9, bonds began to grow between Case and Norman Wallace's family," Susan Shurin, vice president and secretary of the Corporation at Case, said at Tuesday's clinic.
Ongoing service project
Some 39 children in the second and sixth grades at Legacy, on Oak Hill Avenue, benefited from a Case community service project that has been ongoing in Cleveland city schools for several years. The clinic here, funded by Case and its dentistry school, is the university's first outside of Cleveland.
Shurin believes the relationship can work to the advantage of both Case and Legacy.
"We provide a service here and hopefully can establish a pipeline for future Case students. We would like to not have this die," she said.
Dr. James A. Lalumandier, associate professor and chairman of the department of community dentistry at Case, hopes a mentor program will be established between Case and Legacy in which dentists and physicians and nurses will come to the school and talk about what they do and what it takes to enter CWRU.
Goals of clinic
Bishop Wagner said the clinic had three primary goals: to provide access to dental health; to provide access to the university in years to come; and third, and possibly the most significant, to give pupils role models in the hygienists and dentists from various walks of life, minorities and women, in leadership positions.
Dr. Francis Curd, a Youngstown native, also was part of the Case team. Dr. Curd is an associate professor and director of quality assurance at the school of dentistry.
Dr. Seth Canion, chairman of pediatric dentistry at Case, explained the process.
He said the pupils' teeth are cleaned and examined. Then a sealant is placed on the rough biting surface of the rear teeth, which helps prevent cavities.
Dr. Canion said fluoride in water adheres best to smooth surfaces, but leaves rougher areas at risk for infection. He said the sealant can last five to seven years. The teeth of second- and sixth-graders are targets because they are the years when the first and second permanent molars appear, he said.
Preparing pupils
Before the examinations, a Case health educator talked to the pupils to let them know what was going to happen to them, and to alleviate the possible fear factor, Joyce Baldwin, Legacy building principal, said. Baldwin was Wallace's first-grade teacher.
Judging from comments of three sixth-graders, the pre-clinic talk worked.
Unique Gilmore, 12, Shalayah Harris, 11, and LaTrisha Bratton, 11, all said it tickled or felt good and was fun.
"And I got to speak Spanish. A lady taught me some words," Unique said.
Bishop Wagner said it helps Wallace's family to know that his life and death created greater awareness of the need to access institutions of higher learning and also provided greater awareness that there are many diamonds in the rough, like his nephew, in the inner city.