Culver Education Provides Doctor with Skills to Operate in Life

Culver helped Dr. Carl E. Dillman Jr. '54 become a doctor, just like his dad.

Growing up in Corydon, Indiana, the goal-oriented Carl felt a good high school education would allow him to enter premed and medical school. He had already spent two years at Culver's Woodcraft Camp and two years at the Summer Naval School. His father, a general physician, knew that Culver Military Academy had an excellent academic reputation and sent his son there for Winter School.

"When I received an ‘A' on my first organic chemistry class at Culver, I knew I had what it took to become a physician," says Carl. After graduating 37th in his class of 179 students, he earned his undergraduate degree at DePauw and his medical degree at Indiana University.

Today the cardiologist has a five doctor cardiovascular practice in New Albany, Indiana, and lives in Anchorage, Kentucky. Carl and Nancy, his wife of 34 years, also own a thriving business that breeds and races thoroughbred horses. (Nancy, a former successful stockbroker in New York City, was so good at breeding horses that she eventually left stocks and bonds to concentrate on stallions and mares.)

"I really owe much of my success, self-discipline, study practices, and early experience to Culver," Carl says. "It provided me with a disciplined approach to problem-solving that I still use today. I wanted to give something back."

He discovered the appropriate gift more than twenty-five years ago when he decided to leave his internal medicine practice in upstate New York to study cardiology at the University of Louisville. At the time, interest rates were high and property values were falling in upstate New York, and Carl suspected his home would take a long time to sell. Rather than rent it out, he gave the property to Culver.

"It made good sense to me," Carl explains. "I avoided the problem of selling a house in a declining market, and I helped Culver with a charitable gift. I also received a tax deduction on the full appraised value."

Carl enjoyed his Culver time, including his summer Woodcraft experiences where he learned Native American lore. He played the baritone horn in the band and rowed on the band's crew team. One of his instructors was Mr. Benner, the father of Ruth Benner Hix, Culver's current chief development officer.

In 1962 Carl returned to the campus and worked as part of the medical staff under Dr. Baker for a member of Culver's Summer School Health Center. "It was a very positive experience," he says.

Culver continues to provide Carl with memorable encounters. This summer Carl and Nancy visited Tayler, one of her nephew's children, at Woodcraft Camp. On one visit they walked out on the sailing pier to look at the Ledbetter, Culver's three-mast vessel used in the Summer Naval School.

In the middle of asking a question of someone who looked like he knew what he was doing, Carl realized he was speaking to his old Culver classmate Bruce Munroe, whom he hadn't seen in 45 years. Commander Munroe has worked with the Summer Naval Program for many years.

Carl hopes that one day his grandchildren will attend Culver and learn valuable life skills, just like he did. "It's a wonderful place," he says.

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