High School Counselor's Advice Proves Pivotal in Chiropractor's Life

Years ago ago while Doug Gordon was planning for college, he received advice from Hartland High School school counselor Karen Cotton that changed his life forever.

“I was going to go to Michigan State, or Central Michigan, or Grand Valley," recalls Doug. "I remember saying that I’d love to play basketball somewhere, but I didn’t feel like I was good enough to play at these big schools, and she asked me if I had considered playing for a smaller, Division 3 school like Kalamazoo College.

“If she hadn’t brought that up, I probably would have attended a bigger school and missed out on meeting my wife, foreign study and all of my other great experiences at Kalamazoo College.”

Today, Doug lives in Portage with his wife, Anne, and their three children. After graduating Hartland High School in 1993, Doug graduated from Kalamazoo College in 1997, and then after college moved to Chicago where he worked as a caseworker for a welfare agency. He is currently working as a chiropractor for Minges Creek Chiropractic in Battle Creek.

Life in high school

Doug’s fondest memories from high school involved friends, basketball, newspaper class, and, for his first time, drama club. Doug played Will in the club’s spring production of Oklahoma.

“The auditorium in the high school was still brand new, and the drama club had performed Les Miserables in the fall, so Oklahoma was their first spring production held in the new high school auditorium,” Doug said. “I liked to think that I had a broad base of friends in school, but there were a lot of kids that I didn’t know that were involved in the drama club and I got to be pretty good friends with them at the time. I hadn’t done anything like that growing up so just being involved in a musical was great.”

When he tells his kids about his experiences in high school, he jokingly describes himself as the original Troy, as in the basketball star from “High School Musical” who surprised everyone with his musical talents.

“Troy may have had better hair,” Doug says, “but I definitely had a better jump shot.”

Doug also speaks fondly of his time in newspaper class.

“I loved newspaper. Looking back, I wonder how we managed to lay out the issues every month with just those two little Macintosh computers.”

His the skills and experience he gained from newspaper class come in handy even now that he is a practicing chiropractor.

“When I need to create a handout, flyer or presentation I’m always drawing upon those skills that we learned from (newspaper teacher Audrey) Faust.”

Life in Chicago

After graduating from college, Doug moved down to Chicago where his then girl friend Anne was studying psychology. While he was living down there, he began working as a case worker for a nonprofit child welfare agency. Doug said that his experiences forced him to grow up quickly.

“Our job was to provide services to families and lot of them needed help in school, counseling or psychotherapy," Doug said. "We would also arrange for transportation, or support the foster families who would care for the kids. Our initial job was to unify the family but sometimes that wasn’t possible."

His experiences at the agency gave him a fresh perspective on his life in Hartland.

“I once worked with a 28-year-old mother who was taking care of two sets of twins, and then eight other children. There was a lot of abuse and neglect in most of the families that we dealt with. I would visit these kids in the projects of Chicago and they’d seen neglect and abuse at the age of 2 or 3 that you couldn’t have dreamed of. Compared to these kids’ situations, growing up in Hartland was like living in a big bubble.”

After three years, Doug left the agency to enroll in chiropractic school. For him, it was a clear career choice.

“It was a pretty terrific experience overall and the opportunity to live in Chicago was a big plus, but I couldn’t stay if  (Anne and I) wanted to get married and have a family.”

The future

Doug may have left the case worker profession behind, but he still carries with him a deep admiration for the foster parents who take in children from troubled homes.

"(Foster parents) open up their homes to children who they don’t know at first and provide them a safe place to live. It might be temporary or if the foster parents want to they might eventually become adopted parents, too.”

Doug and Anne have considered opening up their home to a foster child when the timing is right for their family.

“Eventually we may look at becoming foster parents, but we want to wait until our kids are older.”

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