Geeson to Speak at 21st Annual Lorelle F. Martin Lecture

Devinn Lynn Geeson RDH will be the guest speaker for the 21st annual Lorelle F. Martin Lecture on February 28th at 7:30 p.m. in the Southern Bank Auditorium on the University of Mount Olive campus. The theme for this year’s lecture is “Stand for Something.” This event is free and open to the public.

Geeson is a second year dental student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated from University of Mount Olive with a B.S. degree in Biology in 2009. She has served in dentistry for more than eighteen years.  She graduated with her A.S. in Dental Hygiene in 2002 and a Certificate in Dental Assisting in 1988.  Upon graduation from Wayne Community College, Geeson received the coveted Community Dentistry Award.  She continued to work in the community serving with the public health hygienist, the YMCA, and becoming a distinguished speaker for Communities and Schools, a nonprofit organization supporting socioeconomically disadvantaged students.  In 2003, she became the President of the South-Eastern Dental Hygiene Component where she served for a year before moving with her family to Clayton, North Carolina.

While pursuing her B.S. degree, she continued to be involved in the community serving with Women’s Empowerment, Hispanic, Native and African-American Health Fairs, and the North Carolina Mission of Mercy providing free dental care to underserved areas in the state.  In 2010, she attended the Medical Education Development Program at UNC Chapel Hill and was awarded the Larry Keith Spirit Award.  Geeson attributes much of her educational success to this program and was honored to be able to serve the MED program as a teaching assistant after being accepted to the UNC School of Dentistry class of 2015.

Since admission to dental school, Geeson has continued to serve her community, both locally and internationally, not to mention her class and her institution.  She traveled with the 2012 UNC Mexico Project to provide dental care to over 600 children at the Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos home for orphans.  She serves as recruitment committee chair with the Student National Dental Association whose mission is to increase minority admission and retention to medical and dental school, Delta Sigma Delta as philanthropy chair, and the class of 2015 as Social Chair.  She is also one of the founding coordinators the SNDA CAARES Clinic, a student run free dental clinic in Durham, NC.  Geeson serves as a teaching assistant for pre-clinical classes and mentors pre-professional students associated with many of her roles.  She was recently appointed by the Dean to the Clinical Affairs Committee and the Clinical Curriculum Revitalization Committee.

After graduation, Geeson, plans to continue to contribute to her community, and the world while practicing dentistry in the broadest scope in an underserved area. Her goals for the future are the same as the past; to pay forward the gifts she has received personally, educationally and professionally to enrich the lives of others.  Geeson lives in Chapel Hill and has two children, Tyler and Trista who are both students at University of Mount Olive.

The annual Lorelle F. Martin Lecture was established in 1993 by Dr. E. Lee Glover as an annual tribute to his former professor Mrs. Lorelle F. Martin. Martin served for 30 years as chair of the Department of Science and Mathematics at University of Mount Olive before retiring in 1987.

This event is sponsored by the University of Mount Olive Department of Biological and Physical Sciences. For more information about the lecture, please contact Dr. Kazi Rahman, chairman of the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences, at 919-658-7856 or krahman@moc.edu.

University of Mount Olive is a private institution rooted in the liberal arts tradition with defining Christian values. The College, sponsored by the Convention of Original Free Will Baptists, has locations in Mount Olive, New Bern, Wilmington, Goldsboro, Research Triangle Park, Washington and Jacksonville. For more information, visit www.moc.edu.