There’s a good deal of policy and discussion about how to recruit doctors to smaller communities in the state. It was demonstrated how fortunate Baldwin City is in that regard when Dr. Cristina Goodwin started at the Baldwin Medical Clinic just two weeks after the departure of Dr. Dara Lowe.

Goodwin said local ties played a role in her difficult decision to leave an established practice in Larned to relocate to Baldwin City.

“I went to school at Mid-America Nazarene, Kansas University and the KU Med Center,” she said. “I knew the area. It felt like I was coming home.”

Goodwin practiced at Larned the past six years as part of one of those rural recruitment programs, the National Health Service Corps. Her obligations to the program were filled a year ago, freeing her to look at other opportunities.

She jumped at the opportunity that Ransom Memorial Hospital in Ottawa offered at the Baldwin Medical Clinic in part because of the work Lowe did in the past four-plus years building the clinic’s client base. Lowe left the clinic Dec. 22 to join her husband, former Baldwin City Administrator Chris Lowe, in Monument, Colo.

“She did a fantastic job,” Goodwin said. “I’m hoping to continue and build on that growth and care.”

Making the move to Baldwin City with Goodwin are her husband, Darin, and the couple’s four children, ages 4 to 11. Her husband is a “jack of all trades,” who does carpentry and woodworking and is also an emergency medical technician. He is looking to become an EMT locally, she said.

Another factor in her decision to relocate was Ransom’s embrace of her compassionate care work. Goodwin said she has made monthlong compassionate care trips through Heart to Heart International to areas in the United States and such locations as Haiti and Mexico.

“We will have a nurse practitioner here in the clinic when I do that,” she said.

Baldwin City residents will have the opportunity to meet Goodwin during an open house from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Feb. 18 at the clinic, 810 High St.
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D-Dub Bar in Eudora is taking advantage of the closing of Anthony’s Diner to expand. Darick Willis, co-owner of D-Dub with Travis Turner, said the bar that opened at 10 W. Ninth St. in November 2014 was in the process of converting the closed diner in the east half of the building into a bar and grill.

“It will allow us to actually serve food,” he said. “It will be a place people can come to watch games on TV and have a burger.”

Plans also include pool tables, Willis said. The hope is the project will be finished in time for the NCAA basketball tournament, he said.
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At its recent annual meeting, Baldwin City Economic Development honored Baldwin Family Dentistry and Dr. Chris Leiszler with its business of the year award and Dr. Bonnie Cramer with its businessperson of the year award. Rainbow Experience Preschool received the organization’s annual community service award.
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The Baldwin City Senior Mix will have its monthly meeting a 2 p.m. Wednesday at Ives Chapel United Methodist Church, 1018 Miami St. The speaker will be Baldwin City Chamber of Commerce director Hank Booth.
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The Eudora Parks and Recreation multifamily and friends garage/rummage sale will be from 9 a.m. to noon Feb. 13 at the Eudora Community Center, 630 Elm St.