ODA EDITORIAL
REFLECTIONS ON 35 YEARS WITH THE JOURNAL Dr. Miranda has announced his resignation as Associate Editor of the ODA Journal effective December 31, 2021, bringing to a close a 35-year tenure with the Journal. The following are his reflections on his time with the editorial board and his acknowledgement of all those with whom he has worked with over the years.. In 1974, I was recruited from California to join the charter faculty at the new OU College of Dentistry. One of my first actions upon arriving was to join the Oklahoma Dental Association. Many valuable perks have come with my 47+ years of membership, but the most enjoyable has been my official association with the ODA Journal. Since first joining its Editorial Board in 1983, I’ve had the privilege to be intimately involved in the development and publication of the Journal for 35 years. During that time no experience has been more gratifying than the sheer number of personal and professional relationships I’ve been blessed to cultivate.
Frank Miranda, DDS, MED, MBA ODA Journal Associate Editor
6 journal | Nov/Dec 2021
The one individual most responsible for my formal involvement in Journal activities was Dr. Thomas J. Murdoch. I first met Tom in the late 1970s when he joined the OUCOD as part-time faculty in the Department of Operative Dentistry. In 1975, he and Dr. Earl Mabry had begun a 15-year tenure as alternating editors of the ODA Journal. (Truth be told, they were essentially coeditors. Pretty much joined at the hip, they were a seamless and well-oiled team.) As my friendship with Tom deepened, I became intrigued with his journalistic activities and jumped at his invitation to join the Editorial Board in 1983. For the next seven years, I served first as reporting liaison for the College of Dentistry to ensure that OUCOD news made it into the Journal, and then alternating with either Tom or Earl as associate or advisory editor when the other was serving as editor. We jokingly referred to ourselves as the “3-M Company” (Murdoch, Mabry, Miranda), borrowing the moniker from the morefamous dental product supplier. When Tom and Earl decided to hang it up in 1990, I
stayed on the Journal staff as a scientific consultant and OUCOD “roving reporter,” serving with four different editors over the next four years. In addition to Tom’s talents as a writer and editor, he was also a superb and avid photographer; hundreds of his photographs have graced the pages (and covers) of the Journal over the years. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to him (and Earl) for introducing me to the art of journalism. In 1995, I assumed editorship of OU Dentistry, OUCOD’s in-house alumni magazine. While Tom and Earl had provided valuable preparation for this role, the more intensive hands-on nature of dealing with the school’s publication made it very difficult to adequately attend to both projects. So I reluctantly took a four-year hiatus from the Journal. (Fortunately, three of the four ODA editors during this time were OUCOD faculty, so the pipeline for school news remained intact.) When I resigned my first stint as OU Dentistry editor in 2000 I resumed my formal association with the ODA Journal. For the past 21 years that relationship has been continuous, involving service as either Advisory or Associate Editor (in addition to my own stint as Editor in 2002-03). Throughout my time with the Journal, I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the true giants of Oklahoma Dentistry, like Dr. Ray Cohlmia (who was ODA president when Tom and Earl brought me on board and who became a dear and lifelong friend and mentor). I’ve worked with the ODA’s last three executive directors, Bob Berry, Dana Davis and the tireless Lynn Means. (Incidentally, Lynn, the ODA’s seventh executive director, will soon complete her
