The first time Rudy Oxendine visited a dentist, he was in middle school. In the poor rural community he’d grown up in as a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, the notion that everyone was destined to end up with dentures was pretty much a given, he said.
Oxendine, who was raised by his grandfather, was surprised to learn the procedure wasn’t so bad. At the time, it didn’t occur to him that becoming a dentist was a possibility.