Special gift puts smile on Stamps

Dr. Giles Willis Jr. was not expecting this.

The 45-year-old dentist and Lewisville native was a special guest on Kelly Clarkson’s Dec. 1 holiday special, “When Christmas Comes Around.” Willis, who appeared with his wife, Kimberly, and their daughter Eden, was being highlighted for his plans to open a dental practice in Stamps. His Lafayette County Dental Clinic is the county’s first dentist’s office since 2004, according to Delta Dental of Arkansas.

After sharing his story, Clarkson announced that she and her friend, actress Melissa McCarthy, along with furniture maker Wayfair, were giving him $100,000 to help set up his new clinic.

“I didn’t know that was going to happen,” Willis said last week. “When she said ‘$100,000,’ I truly could not catch my breath.”

Along with that gift, Willis has also received a $30,000 grant and two $2,500 mini grants from Delta Dental of Arkansas to help outfit his clinic.

The new office is a sort of full-circle moment for Willis.

When he was 8, Willis developed a toothache that hurt so badly he tried to yank the tooth out himself. His mother took him to nearby Stamps to see Dr. Patrick Moseley, who pulled two of Willis’ teeth.

The experience, Willis says, set him on his career path and he graduated from the College of Dentistry at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

He had a practice in North Carolina, but he and Kimberly had been planning to move back to Arkansas to be closer to family. In 2019, the space that once housed Moseley’s practice in Stamps was on the market, and it was too good of an opportunity for Willis to pass up.

Stamps Mayor Brenda Davis has known Willis since he was a youngster.

“We are excited about [the clinic],” she says. “We haven’t had a dentist in our area for several years now and this will be an asset to the community.”

Willis will split time between seeing patients at Markham Family Dentistry in Little Rock and at the clinic in Stamps, which opens for the first time on Thursday.

Appointments have already been booked.

“The people I’m going to see, almost every one of them will be there because of pain, they need a tooth pulled,” he says. “They are walking around with bad teeth or an abscess. That should tell you that there is a need. It speaks volumes to the lack of access to dental care in rural areas.”