2013 Outstanding Alumnus Award Winner
The notion of going to pharmacy school for five years seemed much too long for Dr. Becky Barton “because I was in love,” she says with a chuckle.
She followed her heart and married John Vernon Barton after graduating in three and half years with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education from Slippery Rock State University. Her husband went on to pilot training with the Air Force and, while he was in Southeast Asia, Dr. Barton pursued a master’s degree in educational psychology from Edinboro State University. She raised two children and taught high school psychology, sociology, economics, and geography before making the decision to become a dentist.
“John’s father was a dentist, so he thought he would become a dentist following his Air Force career,” says Dr. Barton. “But I began to consider it because I always had an interest in science and I liked working with my hands.”
At age 35, much to her parent’s dismay, she submitted her application to the UT College of Dentistry after taking a year of prerequisites. In 1984, the same year she graduated with her doctor of dental surgery, she opened her private practice in Germantown, Tenn. She retired in 2011, but continues to keep a busy schedule filled with volunteering, church activities, and traveling.
“How funny it is to think that I was the same young woman who didn’t want to spend five years in school to begin with. In the end, I was in the academic world for a very long time in pursuit of my final goal,” says Dr. Barton. “A roundabout journey, for sure, but I wouldn’t change it if I had to do it all over again.”
“My proudest accomplishment is my family,” Barton says. Dr. Barton and her husband have been married 45 years. The couple has two children, John V. Barton II, a law graduate from Washington and Lee University, who is the vice president of an Atlanta real estate investment firm, and Susan H. Barton, a gastroenterologist, who is a UT College of Medicine graduate. They also have two grandchildren.
“A good day is hearing from my grandchildren,” she says. “A bad day is not getting anything accomplished.”
She lives her life inspired by the words of Mother Teresa: “The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace.”
“One thing that life has taught me is that everyone is carrying a burden of some kind,” Dr. Barton says. “Always treat everyone with kindness and compassion.”
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