Dr. Dwyte E. Brooks Sr., Northwestern '69

Southern Gentleman / Wrestler / Flight Surgeon & Dentist / Lobbyist / Philanthropist / Old Fashioned Romantic / Famous Bourbon Lecturer

Which of our beloved brothers was a college wrestler and nearly an Olympian if not for an injury? A classic southern gentleman? USAF Flight surgeon & dentist? Lobbyist and philanthropist? And, if we toss in famous expert and lecturer on the chemistry of bourbon, we probably just gave it away and identified our Northwestern brother, Dr. Dwyte E. Brooks Sr., Northwestern ’69 (#783), affectionately known to many from his lectures as ‘Doc Bourbon’.

Early Life & Family Origins

Our brother Dwyte, who hereinafter shall be referred to as “Doc” or “Doc Bourbon”, can trace his family roots in North America back almost 150 years prior to the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock, to sometime around 1492, plus or minus eight years.

Doc’s family roots consists of Quakers who eventually became Mennonites, who left Europe to escape religious persecution, with most of the family tree arriving in the New World before 1610. His ancestors settling originally along the eastern seaboard, scattered among five forts, from Maine to Virginia, but claiming his principal ancestors hailing primarily from Boston and Philadelphia, with one direct ancestor having been a governor of Philadelphia.

More than 40 ancestors have been traced as having fought during the Revolutionary War, on the side of the victors. And when they were mustered out of the continental army, they were given a choice between money or land for their service. And some took the land, the land grants being in the then unsettled and wild western frontier, we now call Kentucky. One group of ancestors settling in the Cumberland Gap area, an area made famous by Daniel Boone. Other ancestors going further north to the headwaters of the Monongahela.

Doc, born shortly after WWII, 1949, in a single room cabin, as a 5th generation Kentuckian, in the extreme western tip in an area then known as the “land between the rivers”. This area today we know as the “land between the lakes”, the Cumberland lake area of Kentucky defined by many of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) damns built during the Great Depression era. Our brother’s Kentucky heritage can therefore be traced back to the “spoils of war” from our Revolutionary war.

Doc’s family were largely farmers. Doc grew up on a tobacco farm, but did not smoke or drink.

So, the big question, how did Doc escape a life in rural Kentucky? It turns out that Doc’s father was the first member of their family to graduate from high school and was the first in the family to attend college. Doc’s father taught physics at Murray State College. For historical perspective, this would have been at a time and era made famous by the recent movie “Oppenheimer” and the Manhattan project.

The year Doc was born, Doc’s father became a physics professor and moved the family to Lexington, Kentucky, where he studied nuclear physics, at the University of Kentucky. He later moved the family to Cincinnati where he studied Astro nuclear physics and worked at the University of Cincinnati as well as the GE Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Eventually, when Doc was a junior in high school, Doc’s father moved the family to Las Vegas where Doc’s father became involved in the nuclear weapons testing program, including above and below ground testing and the Nerva program, a nuclear rocket engine for NASA, before later working for the Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

So, while our brother Doc was born in the backwoods of Kentucky in a 1 room cabin, the nation’s nuclear program and his father’s career in Physics propelled Doc to the wide desert expanses of a then small and almost empty Las Vegas. The important point being that Doc grew up in a household that was very much involved in some of the most cutting-edge science of that time.

Doc graduated Western High School, Las Vegas, in 1965. An important side-bar worth noting was that Doc met Sue, at church, around this time, in Las Vegas, making her his childhood sweetheart. Sue was active in the Order of the Rainbow and Job’s Daughter’s, both Masonic related, while Doc was involved with DeMolay, also a Masonic organization. More about Sue later.

College Years, Acacia & Travels To See Sue

Doc was a talented high school wrestler. While Doc had multiple scholarship offers for college for wrestling, Doc however accepted an academic scholarship to Northwestern. At Northwestern, Doc studied bio electrical engineering. While a Wildcat, Doc participated in Division I wrestling and pitched for the baseball team. A knee injury kept Doc from attending the 1972 Olympic games in Munchen, Germany, after Doc participated in the Olympic trials at the US Naval Academy that summer.

Doc reports that he skipped rush and lived in the dorms for his first two quarters. At the beginning of the 3rd quarter, Doc’s roommate, Wade Vanbendegon (#792, ’69), moved into the Acacia house and Doc tagged along and joined Acacia. Doc was at Northwestern during the height of the Vietnam War protest days, and the lockdowns that followed the shooting at Kent State.

During these years, Doc’s high school sweetheart had begun studying nursing at the University of Kentucky and while Freshmen were prohibited from having cars, Doc bought a car and often would drive to Kentucky to see his sweetheart.

Doc became a Mason at Bluegrass lodge #96, on his 21st birthday.

Professional School

When Doc finished his bachelor’s degree, he decided dental school was next on the agenda. And where did Doc elect to go? University of Kentucky, of course! While he reports he ‘picked’ Kentucky because it had a “better program”, I think anyone reading this will connect the dots and understand that while Northwestern likely had the far, far better program, Northwestern lacked the one most important and crucial ingredient that was required, something that the University of Kentucky had – namely, Sue. Sue, Doc’s childhood sweetheart was still in nursing school at the University of Kentucky. So, despite whatever elaborate story Doc might tell about why Kentucky’s program was superior to Northwestern’s, unless you’re half-way into the 5th snifter of a bourbon sample at one of Doc’s bourbon lectures, the only story that is believable is that Doc followed the love of his life and selected University of Kentucky for dental school to be near Sue, his future wife and life long love.

But act gracious and pretend you believe when Doc spins a tale that the two schools had important style differences in teaching and Northwestern had an outdated way of treating doctors, making the University of Kentucky the superior school. While at the University of Kentucky, Doc states he had a summer internship at the tobacco Research Institute and they were involved in trying to define the carcinogens in tobacco.

Early Professional Life

In 1975, after completing dentistry school, Doc joined the United States Air Force. Doc spent the next 2 years as a flight surgeon, assigned to the Strategic Air Command, Carswell Air Force Base, Fort Worth, Texas, and attached to a B52 squadron. These were nuclear capable bombers and there would be one flight surgeon for every six planes. Doc was responsible for monitoring the physical and mental health of several aircrews. 

Private Practice

After finishing his period of service, Doc returned to Las Vegas and engaged in the private practice of dentistry. Doc initially associated with another practicing dentist, to get up and working quickly and to support his family. Doc ultimately opened up and had his own practice. He was elected as President of the Southern Nevada Dental Society in 1999 and then later in the state dental association and later elected an officer in the American Dental Association which was based out of Chicago. Among Doc’s patients were governors and a US Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid.

Doc attributes his success in the dental field to team management, something he later lectured on. Doc’s philosophy is to make your team incredibly happy, so they make your patients happy. Doc mentions two mentors important to him, Mark Guidry, an LSU Acacia brother, and Walter Haley, author of Happy Office, Happy Patients. Some of Doc’s staff stayed with his practice for more than 40 years.

Lobbying & Becoming A Bourbon Expert

Doc’s foray into the American Dental Association propelled him into many trips to Washington DC to lobby Congress and the White House on issues important to the association. Doc reports that after days in DC working with politicians he would need to get the bad taste of lobbying out of his mouth. So, he would often stop in Kentucky on his way back to Vegas and visit different Bourbon distilleries. Doc credits this period, 2000 to 2004, to when he learned the many important chemical differences that ultimately distinguish one bourbon from another.

Those that have listened to Doc’s bourbon lectures will know there is some serious chemistry in good Bourbon, though typically, by the 4th or 5th snifter sample that is brought out for testing, those truly serious listeners need to move up close to the lectern to hear Doc as the noise of the audience seems to exponentially increase with each new sample that is bought out for tasting.

Move Into Philanthropy, Mobile Van Clinics, Russia & Covid

During the hey-days of Doc’s dental practice in Vegas, Doc and his wife Sue operated multiple mobile vans in Southern Nevada. These vans were equipped with medical equipment to serve the poor and under-privileged. This idea he credits to his wife Sue, a pediatric nurse. Over a period of 19 years, they served 140,000 patients at an average cost of $12 compared to public hospital average cost of $190. The initial mobile vans were 2 buses rebuilt by penitentiary labor with the support and help of then Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Doc travelled to Russia multiple times in the years 1994 – 1996, where he taught basic elements of medicine and how to improve patient care to Russian doctors who were struggling to deliver more modern care. One of the memories Doc tells is discovering Russian dentists at the time rarely used numbing agents on their patients.

More recently, Doc and Sue ran free immunization clinics for southern Nevada, operating out of high school gymnasiums offering free sports physicals. The pair also provided more than 30,000 immunizations during the Covid pandemic.

Ultimately, due to declining eyesight, Doc sold his practice and retired.

Doc’s advice for a young brother still in undergrad school:

“Make sure you enjoy what you are studying and what you will do after school and you will do well.”

Doc’s advice for any young man in college thinking about joining Acacia:
The network you build while in college will become your most valuable resource. Acacia gives you an opportunity to get involved on many different levels, locally and across the entire breadth of our brotherhood across many, many universities and even outside Acacia and across the globe. Use your time in college and get involved beyond just the classroom and you will be enriched far beyond joining a chapter at your local university. You will not regret it.

Conclusion & Truly Defining Doc
Until just recently, Brother Brooks served as a trustee on the Acacia Fraternity Foundation, helping raise scholarship money and seeing that future generations of young men have the same opportunity to become an Acacian. Aside from his commitment to Acacia, all of Doc’s energies, love and devotion, were directed towards caring for his ailing wife, his lifelong love and devoted partner who recently passed in the summer of 2024.

So concludes our spotlight of our beloved brother, Dwyte Brooks. Like our most famous Acacian Brother worldwide, James Webb, North Carolina ’27, whom the James Webb space telescope is named after, Brother Brooks has and is making contributions to his profession and to the communities he is most passionate about. We are proud to call Dwyte Brooks “brother” and proclaim Doc to be one of many brothers worthy of the title “Acacian, Man of Action”.