Dallas dentist Dr. Larry Herwig has plenty of reasons to smile

Alumni Impact

Julie Cooper | October 3, 2018

If you ask Dr. Larry Herwig (B.S. ’81) if he is having a good year, he might talk your ear off about how much he is enjoying life right now.

The successful Dallas dentist has plenty of reasons to smile. In early October he became a grandfather for the third time. In September he was honored as  the 2018 Distinguished Alumnus by the Texas A&M College of Dentistry; and in November he will join his peers and provide free dental care to Veterans and their families as part of the Texas Mission of Mercy, an arm of the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation.

Herwig says his favorite thing to do is helping others.

The dentists who staff the Texas Mission of Mercy (smiles@tda.org) will see hundreds of patients over a two-day period, offering more than $600,000 in free dental care. Herwig calls this “golden rule dentistry” and says he has probably worked about eight of these events over the years.

In addition, through his church, Northwest Bible Church,  Herwig helped establish a dental clinic in India. “We have about a 40-acre campus, the Asian Christian Academy. There are 2,000 students in the private school in grades K through high school.” There is also an orphanage, hospital, and a seminary near Bangalore, India. Herwig and his family  have made two trips to India, and he plans to return.  His wife, Roxanne, is a teacher and works with the orphans. Herwig says he will see 30 to 50 patients a day during this week in India.

“I guess I would be bored if I was doing something that was average,” he says. Herwig  currently serves on the Texas State University Development Foundation Board.

“I tell people I attained my goals and more and that Texas State was my launching pad,” Herwig says.    “The people they are turning out today are just phenomenal. I don’t want us to quit. That is why I am helping.

Herwig is an adjunct professor at the A&M College of Dentistry in Dallas.  He helped start  Great Expectations, a  program where dentists mentor  students in their first year of dental college.  “We help them understand what they are about to get into. It is a really cool thing,” he says, adding that he wishes such a program was available when he was a dental student. 

Herwig has served as president of both the Dallas County Dental Society and the Dallas Academy of General Dentistry, vice president of the Texas Dental Association, and chairman of the American Dental Association’s Council on Communications. 

Any plans to retire? “Zero,” he says. “I’m enjoying it too much.”