TopVet: Charlie Norwood, Georgia Congressman

Charles Whitlow Norwood, Jr. - he prefers Charlie - was born in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1941. After graduating from Baylor Military High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1959, Charlie received his bachelor’s degree from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro in 1964, and a Doctorate in Dentistry Sciences from Georgetown University Dental School in Washington, D.C., in 1967. He was elected president of the student body at Georgetown in his senior year.

Charlie served as a captain in the U.S. Army from 1967-69, beginning with an assignment to the U.S. Army Dental Corps at Sandia Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1968, he was transferred to the Medical Battalion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam, and served a combat tour at Qui Nhon, An Khe, and LZ English at Bon Son.

During his tour, Charlie participated in experimental military dental practices that are now standard procedure for the Armed Forces. He was one of the first participants in the Army’s outreach program that delivered dentists to forward fire bases in lieu of transferring patients to rear treatment areas. Charlie also provided some of the first field-based dental treatment of military guard dogs, and assisted in non-dental trauma care in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH units). In recognition of his service under combat conditions, Charlie was awarded the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars.

Charlie began private practice dentistry in Augusta immediately after his discharge. During his dental career, he served as President of both the Georgia Dental Association and the Eastern District Dental Society, was elected as a Delegate to the American Dental Association in 1984-85, and was founder of the Augusta Dental Disaster Society. He remains a member of the American Dental Association, the Georgia Academy of Dental Society, the Augusta Dental Society, is an Honorable Fellow of the Georgia Dental Association, and a Fellow of both the International College of Dentistry and the American College of Dentistry Sciences.

Before entering public life, Charlie and his wife Gloria taught Adult Sunday School at Trinity-on-the-Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta. Charlie also served on the board of the Augusta Opera Society, and was a member of the Augusta Symphony Guild.

After selling his practice in 1993 to run for Congress, he was elected to Georgia’s Tenth District seat in November 1994 as part of the "Republican Revolution", and has since won reelection. He has served on the Commerce Committee and the Committee on Education and the Workforce. His Commerce Committee subcommittee assignments include Health and Environment, and Energy and Power. In the Education and Workforce Committee, Charlie serves as Vice-Chairman of the Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Rural Health Care Caucus, the Army Caucus, and the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus, and the Speaker’s Task Forces on Health Care Reform and Tritium Production.

Charlie has been married to the former Gloria Wilkinson of Valdosta since 1962. The Norwoods live on the banks of the Savannah River in Evans, are members of Trinity-on-the-Hill United Methodist Church in nearby Historic Augusta, and have two sons and two grandchildren.