Steven Craig Wilson was born on August 31, 1950 to Kahle and Betty Wilson, of Scottish descent in MC Pherson, Kansas. He was the oldest of two sons. The family moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma during Steve’s very early childhood.
Upon graduation from high school Steve received a music scholarship in both piano and trumpet from Oklahoma State University. However his choice was to enter a premed program at Oklahoma University. There he completed his undergraduate degree and then enrolled and graduated from Oklahoma University Medical School in 1976. A three year Residency program in Family Practice followed immediately at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (1977-1979) where he won the Winston Storey Award for Most Notable Performance for a Resident. Upon completion he entered medical practice with The Fayetteville Family Clinic. For twelve years he practiced successfully with the Clinic, though he dreamed of working with rural people as a country doctor.
In 1991 he made the break and established an office in West Fork, Arkansas to become a rural doctor. His wife, Connie, and a nurse, Karen Daugherity, who had worked with him at the Fayetteville Clinic, held an open house at his new office, inviting the community that had been without a doctor for several years. (Later Dr. Wilson and his wife divorced. They had no children.) Dr. Wilson was welcomed and soon had a growing medical practice. It was not long before he moved to a larger building. In a letter responding to a “Letter to the Editor, (Washington County Observer a few years later) he lamented that “most doctors just out of training are not optimally equipped for this type of practice—It takes a great deal of experience; to practice medicine when these [technical] aids are not immediately available except through referral in a distant setting—-I came to a rural practice after 12 years of experience in a slightly more populous setting with the tremendous technology of modern medicine at my finger tips. It takes a good deal of experience to practice medicine when these aids are not immediately available except by referral”. Dr. Wilson made house calls when necessary and called as needed for referrals and hi-tech answers to diagnoses. In West Fork, he became well known as part of the local community, and supported the school events, scouts and a nearby aviation museum.
Dr. Wilson was a man of many interests and hobbies. He began to play the bagpipes in the early 1980s and founded the Ozark Highlander Bagpipe Band, teaching about 20 others to play bagpipes. The Bagpipe Band was invited to play with a nationally recognized group, “the Chieftains”. Dr. Wilson was also the organist and choir director at a Presbyterian church. He learned Greek and Hebrew to better prepare for a Bible class he taught. Another hobby was collecting and demonstrating antique ice cream freezers (held the Guinness Book of World Record for his collection). He published a book of 66 recipes for making ice cream. At one time he was a pilot and aviation medical examiner but after a mild heart attach he could not renew his license. To continue his interest in aviation he built a scale model of a Jenny biplane at the nearby Air Museum.
On January 27 of 2006 at the age of 55 Dr. Wilson died. Knowing of his imminent death due to cancer he had prepared his own funeral service, held at Mt. Comfort Presbyterian Church, where he had long been the organist. He was buried at Mt. Comfort Cemetery. His medical practice scanned 30 years.
B. L. Battenfield
August 15, 2015