Scott Swanson
Gerald Wodtli, a 1965 Sweet Home High School graduate and longtime optometrist, was honored with a High-Q award at the school’s graduation ceremonies Friday, June 8.
Wodtli, 71, received the award from Steve Thorpe, who presented it on behalf of the High-Q Committee, a group of alumni who field nominations and choose honorees.
Established in 1976, the High-Q Award was named after Sweet Home’s state championship High-Q team, which competed with schools throughout the state and nation to answer questions in categories from anthropology to zoology.
The award honors graduates who have made “exceptional contributions or achieved national recognition in the areas of academics, leadership, vocation or athletics.”
Wodtli is the 25th recipient of the award.
After graduating from Sweet Home, he moved on to the University of Oregon and then to Pacific University, where he graduated in 1973 with a degree in optometry, entering private practice in Pasco, Wash. in 1975.
Thorpe said Wodtli has worked since 1995 to go on “vision missions” throughout the world: Jamaica, Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand, the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Malawi, the Philippines and, most recently Ecuador. He has worked with two non-governmental organizations to provide eye clinics “in the poorest areas of the countries, where little or no vision care has been available,” Thorpe said.
Wodtli also has organized eye doctors in his area of Washington to provide emergency eye care around the clock.
“He retired in 2014 after 41 years of private practice, yet he is continuing to serve,” Thorpe said.
Wodtli took the opportunity Friday to speak to graduates about his own experience.
“If you saw me when I was 18 years old, this would be the last place you would expect me to be,” he said. “I was this very ordinary, short, skinny, super-shy kid who lived on Fern Ridge and went to Holley Elementary School. My whole world was Linn County, with most of it being here at Sweet Home High.”
He pointed out that his wife of 49 years, Shirley Lamphear, graduated in the same class, humorously adding as an aside to the graduates, “so you know, girls and boys, it can happen.”
He noted that his sister Linda and her husband Jack Coulter, and brother- and sister-in-law Kerry and Debby Kliever are also graduates of what was then Sweet Home Union High School, as well as his soon-to-be 91-year-old mother, Verna Wodtli.
He said he received a $300 pre-med scholarship from Dr. Robert S. Langmack, who delivered him at Langmack Hospital.
That “meant a lot to me, since I realized that someone actually thought I could be successful,” Wodtli said. “I was scared to death of the pre-med program.”
But, he added, his high school experience had prepared him for college.
“Mr. Doyle Johnson prepared me for history. Mr. Haycock and Mr. Turnbull prepared me for math. Mr. George Myers prepared me for biology and Susan Lamb prepared me in chemistry and physics.
“Actually, my favorite person at Sweet Home High was Mrs. Keene, who was the chief cook in the cafeteria. Her chocolate cake was incredible.”
Wodtli urged graduates to take advantage when opportunities present themselves.
“Someone once said, ‘If you are well-prepared and opportunities come along, then amazing, wonderful things can happen. You can’t always know where the opportunities will come, but your job is to become well-prepared.”
He emphasized that opportunities are often unexpected.
“My first eye care mission trip began as an out-of-the-blue phone call from a stranger,” Wodtli said. “As a result, the team saw 2,000 patients in six days in a ghetto area of Kingston, Jamaica.
“Another unexpected phone call and I was going into Ethiopia, helping with a new NGO doing cataract surgeries.”
Though the team did “only” 54 eye operations on that first trip in 2009, one of its members suggested setting a goal of doing 20,000 by the year 2020.
“Most of us thought, ‘What a crazy, grandiose goal,'” Wodtli said.
As of two weeks ago, they had completed more than 18,000 cataract surgeries, with a projected total of 24,000 by 2020 in the area where, he said, cataract problems are rife.
“Please realize I am just a worker bee on these projects,” Wodtli said. “But worker bees are needed and I am glad to be part of these teams.
He described himself as “this old guy, still short, sort of pudgy, slightly less shy and still very grate- ful for Sweet Home High giving me the preparation I needed so much.”
Wodtli, whose comments drew sustained applause from the crowd, urged the graduates to “consider adding to your preparedness, your talents and skills, a little kindness along the way. The world needs more of that.
“You don’t need to worry about the opportunities. They will find you.”