Page 21 - Dentistry Magazine 2022

Student life 21
Colton and Hannah Hudelson, DDS ’22
“The School of Dentistry is pretty much central to our story. We come from opposite ends of the state, we would have never met without it, and who else can relate to the trials and stresses of dental school like another student?”
Colton and Hannah Hudelson, DDS ’22
Then: met in the RetroMolar Pad, bonded over studies
Now: Married, with a 9-month-old son, Waylon. Associates in a private practice in Hibbing, MN.
He knew he had made the right decision after volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club in Madison, Wisconsin. “There were kids with dental pain,” he recalled. “Some days, they would be loving life: and then some days, they wouldn’t
be themselves because of the pain. I wanted to be part of making that better for them.”
Gonyea and Gardner have not worked together much in dental school, beyond engaging in what Gardner calls “teeth talk” after hard days and connecting the DDS and dental therapy classes through their relationship. However, they both decided to serve on the School of Dentistry Alumni Society board.
“Everyone on the board is incredible,” Gonyea said of the experience. “It’s been a great opportunity for us to network, and we’re working to help our classmates do the same thing.”
Because the school—and the alumni society—were so instrumental in their time together, Gonyea knew that they had to play a large role when he asked Gardner to marry him.
“I’m really hard to surprise,” Gardner explained. So Gonyea had to pull out all the stops. He concocted a plan and brought it to Erin Elliott, Director of Alumni Relations for the School of Dentistry. Together, they worked with the board to create a fake meet and greet event at McNamara, convincing Gardner that she and Gonyea would be getting to meet the people they had mainly worked with over Zoom. When she arrived, she found the room where they had met decorated, and Gonyea ready to propose.
Gonyea knew that he needed the school to be a major part of their proposal story, because it had meant so much
to them throughout their relationship. “I knew I wanted to do it at McNamara,” he said. And having the alumni society involved was the perfect way to keep it a secret. “We are really lucky that the U and the dental school have been part of our relationship,” Gardner said. “It was special to get engaged at the place we met, and I think if he would have done it any other way, I would have been onto him.”
BOUND IN SPECIALTY AND PARTNERSHIP
Zach Slama, DDS ’20, and Maddy Gamble, DDS ’19, were co-residents in the Division of Orthodontics. They were pretty much together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And the two wouldn’t have it any other way.
Slama and Gamble first met when they entered the School of Dentistry’s DDS program one year apart. They joined the same dental fraternity and moved into the same house. They quickly became friends, then started dating.
“It’s a unique situation when you live with someone before you date them,” Gamble reflected. “You learn a lot about people really quickly.” Their relationship continued to flourish, with an engagement during Slama’s D4 year and
a wedding in August 2020.
Their wedding was “a silver lining” of the pandemic, Gamble explained. They enjoyed a small ceremony with family. “I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” she said.
Gamble and Slama underwent their orthodontics residencies at the same time, with Gamble completing hers in 2021 and Slama his in 2022. They’re professional, like any other co-workers, while in the workplace—so much so that some of their coworkers didn’t even know that they were together for much of their residencies.