Dr. Michael Plunk stands in his office next to a photo of himself from his days as a yell leader at Baylor University. Photo by Renee Umsted.

For nearly half a century, Michael Plunk has been working as a dentist in his office on the fourth floor of the Doctors Professional Building near White Rock Lake.

But that 45-year-old practice and Plunk’s 45-year career in dentistry almost didn’t happen.

On April Fool’s Day in 1967, when Plunk was a senior at Bryan Adams High School, Plunk’s father, a 46-year-old postal worker, had a heart attack. He was taken to Doctors Hospital and received care, living until the age of 91. But at the time of the heart attack, Plunk thought the incident was going to dictate his career.

“It was kind of like I was going to have to stay home and support the family,” he said. “And I was going to be a postman because I admired my dad.”

But his father’s sisters — alumni of Baylor University — were determined to get Plunk into college. One who worked for a member of Congress made arrangements to send Plunk to Texas A&M, where he’d be required to participate in the Corps of Cadets and serve in the military after graduation, this during the Vietnam War. The other aunt found a way to get Plunk into Baylor, and he started summer school soon after finishing at Bryan Adams so he could enroll as a full-time student in the fall.

Plunk’s time at Baylor shaped his life in many ways. It’s where he and his wife, Carol, started dating; they both went to Reinhardt Elementary but didn’t reconnect until their senior year of high school at Bryan Adams, when they learned they were both going to attend Baylor.

Up until his junior year, Plunk was heading down the pre-med path. But once a counselor advised Plunk to talk with his family dentist, he decided to pursue dentistry. From there, it was just a matter of figuring out a specialty, and Plunk ended up in pediatrics — at least to start.

“Had I known when I got out of high school that I was going to go to school for 12 more years, I probably would’ve said, ‘That’s not going to happen,'” said Plunk, who grew up in Little Forest Hills.

Having been a cheerleader at Bryan Adams, Plunk — who also was a student Alex Sanger the first year it opened — decided to try out to be a yell leader at Baylor. He and a few others created the Baylor Line, a group that exists today.

During his college days, yell leaders stayed in the same dorm as the football team, and a few football players taught Plunk to juggle, an activity he has performed around his dental office.

Baylor was also where Plunk picked up unicycling. One semester, he was at the bookstore to purchase his textbooks. He saw on a shelf a unicycle, on sale for $25, which was about how much he had in his pocket to spend on school supplies.

“I kind of borrowed books for a semester,” Plunk said.

Learning how to ride the unicycle was necessary to prevent buyer’s remorse. Without YouTube to consult, Plunk taught himself. Forget walking: Plunk rode to class on the unicycle. And after he started his practice, he would occasionally ride the unicycle in the parking lot outside. Later, his son learned to ride one, and it’s on Plunk’s granddaughter’s bucket list.

After graduating from the university in Waco, Plunk attended Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, now Texas A&M University School of Dentistry, and did his pediatric studies there, too.

One of Plunk’s classmates from pediatric school invited him to work in Colorado, but he only stayed for less than a year.

“I kept thinking, ‘Gosh, every time we go to vacation, we’re going to come to Dallas. I don’t want to come to Dallas,'” he said. “I thought if I lived in Dallas, then I could go some other places.”

So he reached out to a contact he met during his time at Baylor. The yell leaders came to Dallas to cheer at a basketball game against SMU. When he got a break from his cheerleading responsibilities, Plunk went to say hello to his parents, who were sitting in the bleachers. They introduced Plunk to the person who was sitting next to them, Jack Bolton, who just happened to be an oral surgeon in town. Plunk ended up working for Bolton one summer, and they stayed in touch.

During a visit from Colorado, Plunk was talking with Bolton, and Bolton told him there was an available space next to his office at the Doctors Professional Building. Plunk returned to Colorado and told his partner he was going to set up a practice in Dallas. (But Plunk stayed in touch with his friend in Colorado, too. Years later, he recommended Dr. Sabrina Dragan, one of Plunk’s former students, for a job there; Dragan now works with Plunk at Plunk & Dragan Smiles.)

Plunk decided to take the space next to Bolton’s. He opened his office in East Dallas on June 1, 1978.

“I knew a lot of technical skills, but business-wise, I didn’t know very much, and that was tough,” he said.

Donna StClair, another Bryan Adams graduate, started working for Plunk in 1979, when she was 19. She was in a dental assisting program at Baylor College of Dentistry, and Plunk was teaching in the pediatric program there. He invited her to work with him on Saturdays, and she did.

“I learned so much from just getting my feet wet and being a dental assistant in his practice,” StClair said.

Plunk encouraged her to go back to school to become a dental hygienist, a role she’s held full-time at Plunk’s office since 1995. She also serves as a kind of manager for the practice.

A few years after starting his practice, Plunk decided to go back to school to become an orthodontist. He knew a little bit about the field but didn’t feel like he had the kind of expertise he needed to minimize or prevent future orthodontic issues for patients.

While Plunk was doing his residency, a dentist friend of his helped keep the practice going, since Plunk could only work one day a week.

Though Plunk has considered moving his office a few times over the past 45 years, the timing never worked out, and he always stayed busy.

“Now I don’t want anybody to know about East Dallas. Don’t tell anybody. It is heaven,” he said.

Plunk has been teaching for decades.

In college, he was an instructor for the National Cheerleaders Association and an assistant in the biology lab. Later, he taught a dentistry lab at Skyline High School.

As a pediatric student, he lectured the pre-doc students. About a decade ago, Plunk started teaching pediatric residents, and about five years ago, he started teaching in the orthodontics department.

“You can’t just say something without having a fact behind it, so it makes me a better lifetime student,” Plunk said.

Besides teaching, Plunk was appointed to the Texas State Board of Dental Examiners by George W. Bush, who was governor at the time. He served on the board for six years, including as secretary and president.

“He was already an ethical person, but yeah, that’s what they saw in him,” StClair said of Plunk. “He’s the type of person you would want to be on the governing board of dentistry and then the type of person you want to lead as the president.”

It’s not just juggling and unicycling that makes Plunk unique.

He’s also known for his colorful bowties, a fashion decision he picked up as a dental student. Back then, students weren’t allowed to wear scrubs, and he preferred a bowtie with his short-sleeved lab coat. Later, it just made sense to wear a bowtie so that it wouldn’t fall in his patients’ faces.

Plunk has been a dentist in East Dallas for long enough to see two and sometimes three generations of patients.

“It’s a reward that you don’t see coming,” he said.

Hilary Prine Baker is a former patient of Plunk’s, and she now takes her children to his office. (Another Baylor connection: Plunk and her father lived in the same dormitory.)

“He is just the most fun,” she said. “I began seeing him when I was probably 5 and continued through until I was 18. He did my dental and my braces.”

Over the years, Plunk has focused his practice on prevention and education, taking a holistic view on patient health. But his influence on patients goes beyond dentistry.

“I want to instill values, like all people are equal, respect other people, develop relationships,” he said.

Now in his 70s, Plunk still cares for patients and teaches dental students. Moving forward, he said, he wants to continue building up Dragan and may ramp up his teaching. But, he’s “too work-focused,” he said, and wants to learn how to play.

In his free time, Plunk — who has lived in Lake Highlands for 40 years — likes riding bikes. He and a friend go on a 20-mile ride every Saturday, frequenting the SoPac Trail and White Rock Lake Trail. He regularly visits his mother, who turns 97 this year and still lives in Dallas. And he loves spending time with his 7-year-old “cutie patootie” granddaughter, who wants to be a dentist and cheerleader, too.

“Everyone’s got an interesting journey. Everyone. Everyone,” Plunk said. “And it’s just fun to be able to spend time and find out what their journey is.”