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Many of you are probably aware of the tragic death of Arvo Oopik on February 24, 1994, in the crash of a small plane in Minot, North Dakota.
A cardiologist and commissioned officer with the U. S. Public Health Service, Arvo was making a regular visit to the Indian reservations served by the Indian Health Service when his plane went down in a snowstorm, killing the pilot and all three doctors on board. Arvo had only the previous week moved his family from Denver to Shelby, North Carolina, so that his daughter, Kara, who was born with a heart defect, could live at sea level.
Arvo completed his medical training at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1982, closing a circle broken during World War II, when his father, Tonis, then a third-year medical student, was forced to flee his native Estonia. After completing his internship and residency at the Letterman Army Medical Center in San Francisco in 1983, Arvo was named to a fellow- ship in cardiology at Letterman, a position he held until 1987. He then became the Director of the Aberdeen Area Cardiovascular Program of the Indi- an Health Service. His innovative and cost-effective traveling cardiology program brought much-needed care to the Indian tribes of Nebraska and the Dakotas. A founding member of the Strong Heart Study Group, Arvo explored heart disease among the Native American populations he served, searching for clues to explain the wide variance in the incidence of heart disease among the various tribes.
In 1992, Arvo accompanied his father on his first return trip to Estonia since World War II. Arvo grew up in West Babylon, New York. He was an active member of Sig Ep and an avid skier. He is survived by his wife, Jennifer Brown, his daughters Krista, 11, Krisanna, 7, twins Kara and Kasey, 2, his father Tonis, and his sister Ene.
Memorial contributions may be made to: The Arvo Oopik Memorial Fund, c/o Colorado National Bank, PO Box 1809, Evergreen, CO 80439 or the Oopik Children’s Educational Fund, c/o First National Bank of Shelby, PO Box 168, Shelby, NC 28151.
Many thanks to Tom Ostertag for writing this obituary, which also appeared in the Alumni Magazine.
Old Project Honors the Memory of Arvo Oopik
For years our class project, the Native American Program Arvo Oopik Fund, has subsidized peer academic tutoring for Native American students at Dartmouth in the name of our late classmate who died in a 1994 plane crash in North Dakota while making a visit to reservations served by the Indian Health Service.
Over the past decade, the class has been collecting about $2,500 a year for the Arvo Oopik Fund. Just recently we realized that we had not been sending that money to the Native American Program.
This gave former class project chair Jim Bullion the pleasure of getting in touch with Mike Hanitchak, director of the Native American Program, let him know that the Class of 78 had $25,000 to add to the Arvo Oopik Fund.
Mike says the funds can be used to help pay for peer mentors in the Occom Scholars Program [http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nap/occomscholars.html], which currently has no funding.
Arvo’s family very much appreciates our class's continuing commitment to keep Arvo's memory alive, through not only the class project but also the Class of 1978 Life Science Building auditorium. Arvo's widow, Jennifer Brown, said that her oldest daughter, Krista '05, called in tears when she heard about the $25,000 gift. “These acts of love say mean so much to us,” said Jennifer. “This gift reflects something that is inside all of you – that unity of caring for other people and the earth. You get it at Dartmouth and you take it with you. The same thing exists with Krista, and there is nothing like it. It has been a source of comfort and warmth for us over the years and we will never forget it.”