“Name that Year” is designed to put your knowledge of Tracy and its newsmakers of the past to the test. Each week, we will publish a news item that ran in a past edition — maybe it was a major event, or a story about a Tracy resident — it’s up to you to determine in what year that particular news item hit the pages of the paper:
• A THIRD-YEAR UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DENTAL STUDENT SAID IN THIS YEAR THAT HE CONTINUES TO MAKE PLANS FOR OPENING A DENTAL CLINIC IN TRACY.
“It’s looking very positive,” said Jon Heezen, a Lake Sarah Township resident, who plans to graduate from dental school in the spring and open a Tracy dental clinic by mid-June.
Heezen hopes to build a 3,000 square-foot, six-chair clinic on Union Street, south of O’Brien Court and Sanford Medical Center. He likes the proximity of the site to the hospital, Prairie View Healthcare Center, and O’Brien Court, and the fact that there is plenty of space for parking. Heezen said he considered the vacant Dental Health building in downtown Tracy, but ruled it out because of a lack of parking and concerns that front curbs would limit accessibility. The planned new clinic in southeast Tracy, Heezen said, will be barrier free.
The estimated cost of the new clinic is $400,000, plus another $250,000 to $300,000 for equipment and furnishings. Dental operations will be supported by two dental technicians and a business office. Heezen had originally hoped to open the Tracy dental clinic this year. The idea was to have two retired dentists begin seeing patients right away while Heezen finished dental school. Plans changed when both of the older dentists became unavailable because of health issues.
• Last week’s answer: For the first time in decades, the Ford name left the Tracy business scene when Jim Ford closed his insurance agency in 1995.
