CHENEY – It's been nearly two years since Kara Gerber, D.M.D., came to Twietmeyer Family Dentistry to continue her dental career.

She came in to replace one of the clinic's key members, Dr. Becky Twietmeyer. Now, she has purchased the clinic from Dr. Charley Twietmeyer, son of Dr. Becky and Dr. Steven Twietmeyer, who had taken over for his parents and still owns Twietmeyer Family Dentistry in Wichita. The sale was completed in November.

The clinic is now known as Cheney Family Dental.

Gerber said the past two years have gone by quickly. The Conway Springs native moved back to the area from St. Louis, where she first started practicing. She now calls Cheney home. The move has gone very well.

“It's been so much better than I anticipated. Cheney and the communities around here have been very welcoming,” she said.

She laughed when asked if she misses anything from Missouri, such as St. Louis-style pizza.

“I do miss eating out in St. Louis,” she said.

Gerber said she considered becoming an owner with the practice she worked for in St. Louis.

“I was incredibly happy to practice in St. Louis. Obviously, life brought me back here,” she said. “It (ownership) stayed on my radar.”

All joking aside, the move has been very positive. Living in the same town as her clinic makes some things easy, such as handling emergency situations.

“Cheney has become a dream for me that I didn't realize I had,” she said.

Conversations about a possible sale started in January 2023. It took a few months to finalize negotiations.

With ownership has come new duties.

“Now that I am an owner, I spend the majority of my downtime calling insurance companies, vendors and labs. I feel I'm working more now as owner,” Gerber said.

She said the transition has been pretty seemless. When it comes to changing ownership, much of the work is not visible to patients.

“There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes,” Gerber said.

She's adding some new services as well. Clinic staff members are working to get trained on Invisalign, an alternative to braces. That should be done in the next few months. Gerger worked with Invisalign in St. Louis.

In December, she became certified in botox therapy, and will be offering both cosmetic procedures as well as treatments for TMJ (temporamandibular joint) disorders and trigger point therapy.

Gerber has come full circle with the purchase of the practice. She was a patient there while growing up in Conway Springs. Dr. Becky was the reason she got into dentistry, Gerber told TSnews in 2022.

At the time, she said she loved St. Louis but missed being around for family events. She said she wanted her dad to teach her to garden.