Richard R.

Barron/The Ada News

Ada News

I find that typically, in fun

activities, kids are fun and most
adults are boring. I love
adventure, challenges and
different places. I love history
and I love monsters and I love
zombies and I love toys and I
love BB guns and I like water.
DR. JOHN GARBER

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Adas zombie eye doctor

Annual event raises awareness about organ donation and corneal transplants
that we can apply to that person,
and generally make an improvement.
Garber said many other medical professions are a lot tougher
in terms of diagnosing ailments.
I guess the classic one would
be Rheumatoid Arthritis, he
said. My joints hurt. Well,
here try this. Well, here try this.
Well, here try this. In eye care,
we sort of have a specific solution for every problem. Now,
we cant help everybody. But
the overwhelming majority, we
do help. And without inflicting
pain.
Garber emphasizes how
important sight is to everyone.
If you wake up with a little
bit of back pain, or a limp or
something like that, thats one
thing, he said. But if you wake
up and you cant see, thats a
whole different can of worms.
Garber loves being an eye
doctor and said every eye is like
a snowflake.
Its never boring, he said.
Every eye is unique, and every
eye is beautiful. Its a great profession to be in. I would recommend being and eye doctor to
every human being on the face
of the earth. Its just a fun profession.
Garber is married to Mary
Garber, CFO of Mercy Hospital
Ada; and previously CEO of
Hart Tackle, as well having the
nickname Gunner Gallup from
her Stratford basketball days.
He has three sons from his
first marriage, Dr. Gabe Garber,
internist; Dr. Lance Garber, radiologist, and John Luke Garber
OU pre-med and thespian at the
University of Oklahoma.
All three are Eagle Scouts,
Garber said. Gabe is married
to Dr. Amy Garber, a veterinarian and Lance is married to
Dr. Dana Garber, the chief
optometrist at Dean McGee Eye
Institute.

By RANDY MITCHELL
ASSISTANT EDITOR

da resident John
Garber sure
knows how to
live.
He could be
called a lot of things; father,
husband, doctor, Boy Scout
leader. Some might even call
him eccentric. But no one can
call him a stuffed shirt or stickin-the-mud. Garbers a very
responsible adult, but he has
an ageless sense of adventure
and imagination youd likely
find in a kid. In fact, if you ask
him about it, hell bring up his
favorite quote, by the late genius
Albert Einstein Growing
old is mandatory; growing up is
optional.
Although Garber is known
throughout the community for
the good he does, perhaps he
is best known for an annual
event he helped organize about
five years ago the annual
Zombies for Piece march.
The zombies march is supposed to be a fun event, but it
has a serious side, too.
Garber said Byng High School
student Rachel Thompson
approached him in 2011 about
organizing a zombie march to
educate people about organ
donation. The result: Adas firstever Zombies for Piece event.
The idea is to let the community know the importance of
checking off their organ donation cards and donating blood as
a way to continue to help people
in need forever, and have fun,
Garber said.
On the last Saturday every
October, hordes of people get
dressed up like zombies and
march through downtown Ada,
mimicking the action in the
television series The Walking
Dead, of which Garber is a big
fan.
The zombies get prepared in
a parking lot off of Stockton
between 12th and Main streets,
then make their way to Juliana
Park, where a zombie king and
queen are crowned.
It also gives the kids the
opportunity to dress up as zombies, and go down Main Street
acting like zombies, Garber
said. Now, even though we
have a core group of adults that
help us out, like the Zumba
Zombies who are women who
do zumba class and they come
and dress up and do thriller at
Main Street, I find that we have
all these kids who show up,
and love getting decorated as
zombies. And they ask for more
blood, or more brains and they
just have a great time. Its something the crowd enjoys, too,
because theyll get to see their
friends and the little kids coming up pretending that theyre
scaring people in the crowd by
being zombies. Its almost like,
to me, Adaa Mardi Gras, where
you get to dress up and act stupid, but at the same time, (bring
awareness to organ donation and
corneal transplants).

HELPING OTHERS THROUGH

MISSION WORK

Dr. John Garber uses a leaf blower and a beach ball to demonstrate Bernoullis Principle to kids
gathered for Independence Day activities in Wintersmith Park July 4, 2013.
And Dr. Garber usually heads
up the march, dressed like what
else, a zombie. His car gets a lot
of attention, too. It has skulls
painted on it complete with
a special scene on the hood.
Theres a skeleton warrior next
to an empty grave with a headstone that reads: GARBER
Its all fun and games till
someone gets hurt. Then its
hilarious.
BACKGROUND

Garber has lived in Oklahoma

since 1980 more than half his
life. Although he was born in
Atlanta, Georgia, he considers
himself an Oklahoman.
Garbers father was in the

military and the family moved

around a lot about every
fours years or so. The 36 years
hes spent in Oklahoma is the
longest hes lived anywhere.
Garber likes to say he became
an eye doctor because its clean.
I dont like people bleeding
or throwing up on me, Garber
said with a laugh. Thats my
standard answer. But also, its
a profession with an extremely
high success rate. People come
to doctors with a sore throat and
a runny nose, and they leave
with a sore throat and a runny
nose. They come to an eye doctor not being able to see, and
they leave being able to see.
Garber graduated from

Southern College of Optometry

in Memphis, Tennessee in 1976.
He started work with Indian
Health Service soon after.
He served as the chief optometrist at the Carl Albert Indian
Health Facility in Ada from1980
until the move to Chickasaw
National Medical Center, where
he is chief optometrist there.
He said as well as the success
rate, optometry is highly mathematical and evidence-based.
Everything we do is really
related to physics and therefore,
it is a very accurate and welldocumented profession, he
said. When someone comes in,
we almost always have a plan

To say that Garber has helped

a lot of people would be an
understatement. The importance
of vision has taken him around
the country, and the world.
He has provided eye care
on the Navajo Reservation
at Fort Defiance and Tuba
City, Arizona, the Havasupai
Reservation in Arizona and in
Nome, Teller and Unalakleet,
Alaska. He has also provided
optometry services in Fiji,
Guatemala and Honduras.
We can really come in with
portable equipment basically
two or three suitcases and set
up an eye clinic in any 10x10
room, Garber said. A lot of
doctors cant do that. A radiologist cant go to the bottom of
the Grand Canyon and set up a
radiology clinic.
Garber said there is always
a large percentage of people in
need, especially in third-world
countries.
So being an eye doctor has

>> See GARBER // Page E7

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Ada News

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A crowd reacts as Dr. John Garber asks them to tickle my foot during the fifth annual Zombies for Piece March on Main Street in downtown Ada October 2015.

Garber ...
<< CONTINUED from Page E6
let me go and work with different cultures, Garber said. My
job is my hobby. And therefore,
I get to go and see another culture, and at the same time, make
them see better. So, its a lot
more fun than being a tourist.
TEACHING

Garber has also been an

adjunct faculty member of
the University of MissouriSt. Louis, Southern College
of Optometry, Pennsylvania
College of Optometry, Illinois
College of Optometry and the
University of Montreal, and has
helped train over 300 optometry
externs.
Since 1980, we have students from all over the United
States, primarily now St. Louis,
Missouri, the optometry students
come to our hospital their senior
year and do their externships
here with me, Garber said. So
not only do I get to be a clinical doctor, I also get to be an
instructor, which is another fun
thing to do. So, the things that I
learned dont die with me. I get
to pass them on.
Garber has received numerous honors and awards over the
years including being recognized
in 2006 for his exceptional
contributions to Indian Health
Service (IHS) Eye Care at the
national Indian Health Service
Biennial Eye Care Meeting in
Fullerton, Calif.
HELPING THE COMMUNITY

Another community event

Garber participates in is running
the Childrens and Families
games on Adas Fourth of July
celebration at Wintersmith Park
for the Ada Lions Club.
We play a host of wild and
wacky games with lots of eggs,
water balloons, turtles, fire
trucks, colored powders, and
Bernoullis Principle, Garber
said. Its one of my favorite
days because its impossible to
tell who is having more fun, the
kids or the parents. There is a
healthy lack of maturity that day,
and everyone becomes a kid.
A couple of years ago, he
created the Mrs. Alice Garber
Straight A Club. He promised
seventh-graders at Ada Junior
High School that if they could
maintain straight As for four
years, he will take them on a trip
to London, England, along with
he, his wife and two teachers of
the students choosing.
The Straight A Club is
Garbers tribute to his first wife,
a former science teacher at Ada
Junior High who died of Lou
Gehrigs disease. Alice Garber
loved her students, but she also
enjoyed traveling.
Her memory inspired Garber
to launch the Straight A Club,
which encourages students to
excel in the classroom. The
London trip is their incentive,
but the real goal is to teach students that good grades will open

Dr. John Garber performs an eye exam during a mission trip to Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala.
doors for them later in life.
The premise is simple: the students who earn straight As each
year from seventh to 11th grade,
will be eligible for the London
trip. Students who earn one or
two Bs among the As during
that time will have their names
placed in a different hat, and
Garber will select two names
from that group and put them in
the Straight A hat.
A B earned in an honors class
will equal an A from a regular
class, which is Garbers way
of encouraging students to take
more advanced courses.
TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE

Although Garber moved

around as a child, he never lived
west of the Mississippi River.
When he moved to Arizona to
work for Indian Health Services,
it set off a love of the American
Southwest he has to this day.
To all of a sudden, go to the
southwest and see all the spectacular (scenery), Monument
Valley, all the rock formations,
the Painted Desert, all those
places, with no humidity and no
mosquitoes, I just immediately
said this is a wonderful place,
Garber said. So, when I became
a Boy Scout leader, just about
all of our adventures were in the
southwest.
YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM

Ive always been the way I

am, Garber said. I find that
typically, in fun activities, kids
are fun and most adults are boring. I love adventure, challenges
and different places. I love history and I love monsters and I
love zombies and I love toys and
I love BB guns and I like water.
I find generally, all you need to
do to keep any kid entertained,
is give them a hose and water
balloons. If kids can get wet and
dirty, they enjoy all that stuff.

The Donkey Whisperer, Dr. John Garber, finds a grip on his animal during a donkey basketball game
at ECUs Kerr Activies Center in April 2009. The event benefitted Relay for Life.
Barber said what kids like is
anything imaginative and new.
Thats what Ive always
enjoyed as well, Garber said,
is using your imagination and
then something thats new. And
thats just what kids are. Kids
are just one big ball of curiosity.
Especially if the kids havent
ever had the opportunity to see
new stuff or use their imagination. When you give that to
them, they just explode with
enthusiasm.
Barber said he likes that kids
arent worried about being
embarrassed or not being cool.
I would think that anybody
would hate to put in a lot of time
and effort, and then have people
standing around thinking theyre
too cool to participate, Garber
said. Thats whats fun about
the zombie march. When you
see adults, and you see moms

and dads with their kids, that are

cool enough to dress up and
kids are like, I cant believe it,
mom and dad are dressed up like
zombies! And theyre having fun
and doing stupid stuff! kids
just love that.
Garber believes that is why
kids love grandparents so much.
I think, at times, grandparents are more open-minded and
a little less strict, Garber said.
And perhaps, in the old days,
they did things a little bit differently. Theyd throw water
balloons, and theyd tip outhouses and steal watermelons,
and know the adults have to act
so mature and parents have
to set examples whereas the
grandparents say, To heck with
the example, Im going to have
fun. I think that kids need that.
And when parents go ahead and
get down and get dirty with their

kids, like getting in snowball

fights and go sledding and ride
four-wheelers and go hunting
with the kids, it just shows them
a different side of their parents
and of adults and kids
realize, Oh, gee, I can still have
fun even after Im and adult.
And yet, at times, youll see so
many adults who, the last time
they had fun was when they
were 18 years old. What a tragedy!
And Garber added that any
parents who want to participate
in that fun, are welcomed and
encouraged.
Thats why I respect all
the dads who help out in Boy
Scouting, and all the parents
that show up for the zombie
march and all these these things,
because it shows the kids, once
again, Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

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