By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Most Wednesday afternoons, Dr. Alexis Klassen can be found filling cavities or performing root canals.
But this week, Klassen found herself standing behind a podium, charged with sharing an inspiring message.
“I’m still not quite sure why I was invited to do this gig,” she confessed to the audience of 164 people at Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce’s mid-year meeting and awards program.
But as she began to speak, the reasons became clear.
Twenty years ago, Klassen was a senior pre-dental major at Bowling Green State University, living on Manville Avenue. When she wasn’t studying, she was focused on “being the best Falcon basketball fan ever.”
That paid off, with her later marrying Brent Klassen, a standout player on the Falcons basketball team.
Then Sept. 11, 2001, hit and she turned on the TV to see that the world had changed – and realized she would change with it.
“I was watching in horror and disgust and shock about what our country was going through,” she recalled.
“As I sat there watching them running out of the Twin Towers,” she also watched first responders and military members running toward them. “I knew I had a calling.”
She got a scholarship to go to dental school compliments of the military, served five years in the U.S. Navy, and continues to serve in the reserves.
As a dentist in the Navy, Klassen’s patients were different than those encountered by her friends from dental school.
Those practicing in suburban settings told of crises when “someone ran out of whitening gel before their wedding,” Klassen said. Meanwhile, she was repairing major dental trauma – like the time when two injured Marines arrived for help carrying seven teeth in their hands.
“What I’ve given the military is nothing compared to what I got back,” she said.
“I had so many opportunities that I wouldn’t have had if I didn’t say ‘yes’” to serving in the military, Klassen said. She lived in five different states and two foreign countries, she jumped out of a helicopter into the ocean, and she went into a burning building to try extinguishing the blaze.
Meanwhile, “I was meeting some of the best women and men in the country,” she said.
Klassen told the audience that only 1% of Americans serve in the military.
“I’ll forever be proud of that,” she said of her service.
After leaving active service, she practiced dentistry in Sandusky, then opened Klassen & Associates DDS in Bowling Green in 2020. She recognized that something was missing – something that she held dear in the Navy – a desire for community and country betterment.
She found that joining the BG Chamber of Commerce helped fill that void. “I started feeling that camaraderie,” that she had been missing.
Klassen and her dental team have found ways to better the community through offering free dental care for veterans – providing about $20,000 in services at no charge last year.
She has also started a relationship with Wood Lane to provide accessible free dental care for Wood Lane residents.
Klassen and her team have also adopted a family at Christmas time, and donated items to the annual Project Connect event.
Klassen encouraged others in the crowd to find ways to better the community.
“We can use our talents to give back. We can use our talents to do more,” she said.
Klassen said she was looking forward to meeting the chamber award winners recognized later in the meeting.
“They’re the best of the best,” she said. “I want to meet these people. I want to collaborate with them.”
