GREELEY, Colo.—Irene Holloman was 26 years old, separated, with five kids and no money when she walked into Loretto Heights College and decided she wanted to go to school.
She had been driving through Denver and stopped at the college on impulse, telling the women behind the front desk what she wanted. In the fall of 1969, she was enrolled on full scholarship as a full-time student.
Stopping at Loretta Heights that day was the first sign among many that guided Holloman as she became the first female to graduate from the University of Colorado’s School of Dentistry in 1977. Today, Holloman is preparing to pass the torch after lighting the way for females in her field—she was the first woman known to practice dentistry in Weld County.
“It was like I took the right road, and I followed all of the signs,” Holloman said.
When she was an undergraduate, Holloman said she was pulling one of her daughter’s front teeth when she “just knew” dentistry was meant for her.
Holloman opened up her own practice in Fort Lupton in 1978. When she graduated, she said, “No one would hire me.”
Men who had their own practices said their wives wouldn’t like them working alongside a woman, and they said patients wouldn’t like it, either.
One of Holloman’s first patients was a man who sat in her chair and demanded a male dentist.
“I said, ‘I’m the dentist, so you have me or no one,'” she said. “That man was my patient for many, many years.”
By the time Holloman’s protégé, Shawna Berndt, came to work for Holloman in 1993, she said knowing that Holloman had gone through so much gave her encouragement to get through dental school as well. Now, she plans to run the practice in Holloman’s absence.
“In dental school, they don’t make it easy for you,” Berndt said. “Knowing she made it through something even worse, it makes it easier to handle.”
Holloman’s classes were difficult—the curriculum was tough, and Holloman was the only girl, so she felt that she had to do everything better than her male classmates just to get by, she said.
“I was born in a family of nine girls, so I had never been around men like that,” Holloman said. “It was very grueling for me. … Instructors thought I should be at home with my kids instead of getting my dental degree.”
Holloman had remarried and had three more kids before dental school, but she separated from her husband after she opened up her own practice.
“Many people ask me how I could have done this with so many children, and you know what? I couldn’t have done it without them,” Holloman said.
One of her daughters went on to marry one of her patient’s brothers, Frank Montoya.
Holloman was a hit among the kids at her practice, as well as among many women, Montoya said.
“She was received real well in town,” especially considering the times she was living in, Montoya said.
Since he was first Holloman’s patient back in the late 1970s, Montoya said she hasn’t changed much as a dentist.
“She’s always got a smile and twinkle in the eye, just like back then,” he said.
Holloman said her first years of practice were difficult—she often offered discounted services to low-income and elderly patients, and sometimes at no cost at all. Yet she was still nominated as businesswoman of the year back then for the Future Business Leaders of America.
“I said, ‘I am, because I didn’t go bankrupt,'” Holloman said with a laugh.
But offering her services to those who needed it was at the center of what Holloman believed she was meant to do, ever since she prayed and prayed about what to do with her life when she was 26 and standing inside of Loretta Heights.
“That is what I’m going to miss most of all, is not being there for people who need me,” Holloman said.
Berndt, who has adopted much of Holloman’s ideology, said she doesn’t expect Holloman to disappear from the office any time soon.
“There’s no way she’s ever going to give it up completely,” Berndt said. “It’s in her blood, I think.”
