Leah Rippy grows professionally with CU Pediatric Dentists, gives back through coaching at Mahomet-Seymour
By FRED KRONER
Sloane Davis is 5 years old, but already understands the ramifications of her mother being a dentist.
“She thinks I am friends with the Tooth Fairy,” Leah Rippy Davis said.
Truth be told, Sloane’s mom is regularly in touch with the Tooth Fairy, but that is far from her most important job.
A former All-Area volleyball player for Mahomet-Seymour, Rippy Davis lives in her hometown and works in Urbana at CU Pediatric Dentists.
She learned to have the patience for the youngest of her clientele – some of whom are less than a year old – even before she became a mother and discovered that patience is truly a virtue.
“I love working with children,” Rippy Davis said. “Each day is different. You never know what the day is going to bring.
“It feels great to be able to get children out of pain or work through their fears. Of course, there are difficult days, but it makes it rewarding. Much of what we do is behavior management with the kids; making sure, they are comfortable and understand, in their terms, what is going to happen.
“We see many children that may have had a bad experience somewhere else, and we love to be the ones to get them back on track. We are definitely not magic, but we try.”
Rippy Davis and staff have several tried-and-true methods for dealing with the fidgety and frightened or timid young patients.
“We use a lot of distraction techniques, a method called Tell, Show, Do,” she said. “We are not above bribing with a prize.
“We also used Nitrous Oxide or laughing gas for some patients. This is a method of mild sedation to help relax a patient.”
On occasion, the dentists reach into a literal bag of tricks.
“We do actually give out sugar-free suckers,” Rippy Davis said.
That can-do attitude was also exhibited by Rippy Davis during her tenure as an athlete at M-S before she graduated in 2006.
She was not only an All-Area selection in volleyball, but she was also the Bulldogs’ most valuable player for three consecutive years and was an All-State second-teamer in back-to-back seasons.
Rippy Davis earned a scholarship for volleyball at Murray State (Ky.) University, where she played as a freshman when the school was in the Ohio Valley Conference.
She realized that her future in the work force was going to have a greater longevity than her future as a collegiate athlete, so she made a difficult decision after one year on campus.
“After playing the first year, I quickly realized that if I truly wanted to try to become a pediatric dentist, I needed to choose volleyball or school demands,” she said. “I was not able to take my chemistry labs needed during the season due to travel demands, so it would have taken me five years to finish my bachelors.
“It was a very hard decision, but I decided to walk away from volleyball and focus on trying to get into dental school. I stayed on as a student assistant for the Murray State team the next few seasons, which was also fun to still be around the team, but not have the demands of travel.”
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There’s not a history of dentists in the Rippy Davis family. What she knew – before embarking on it as a career – was what she had observed as a patient and occasionally shadowing her own childhood dentist, Dr. Mark Williams (who had an office in the Eastwood Plaza before retiring), when she was wondering if the profession would be a good fit.
“Growing up, I did not mind going to the dentist, but it definitely was not something that I looked forward to,” Rippy Davis said. “I never had a bad experience or anything.
“My family would go the two times yearly for my cleaning and exams like recommended.”
She came to understand that not everyone had a positive experience while in the dental chair.
“Once I was interested in dentistry and started talking to others about dentists or experiences, I quickly realized how many people had bad experiences previously,” Rippy Davis said. “At our office, we aim to be the ones to change that. We want a great experience for every family that walks in our doors.
“We want children to be excited to come and see us every six months or more. It is amazing to see children grow up with our practice. We start seeing patients around age one and it’s so great to see them grow up and graduate out of the practice and move on with their adult lives.”
She remembers in her teen-age years always wanting to work with kids and combine it with a career in the medical field.
“Until high school, I thought I would go to medical school and become a pediatrician,” Rippy Davis said, “but once I got a little older and started thinking about my own family someday, I wanted to find something that I could have a good work/life balance, and someone mentioned dentistry.
“I shadowed some at the dentist’s office I went to growing up and decided that I really enjoyed this field. From high school on, this was what I really wanted to do and did not really have a Plan B. I am glad it all worked out.”
After attending dental school at the Southern Illinois School of Dental Medicine (in Alton) and earning her DMD in 2014, Rippy-Davis was accepted into the Indiana University/Riley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Dental Residency program. She completed her Masters in Dentistry and her Pediatric Dentistry Specialty Certificate from Indianapolis, Riley Children’s Hospital in 2016.
Through a stroke of good fortune, Rippy Davis was able to return to Champaign County as she was ready to enter the work force.
“My husband Ben Davis (also a 2006 Mahomet-Seymour graduate) was already working at Farm Credit Illinois in Mahomet,” Rippy Davis said, “and I had decided we wanted to move home and raise our future family in Mahomet surrounded by family and friends.
“I was lucky that CU Pediatric Dentists (Dr. Vickie Hemann and Dr. Chifan Cheng) had reached out about a year prior to see if I would be interested in joining their team. Dr. Vickie Hemann (now her business partner) is also an alumni from Indiana’s Pediatric Dental program.
“She had heard there was a resident that was from Mahomet and reached out to see if I planned to come home. I was so excited because there are not many pediatric dental offices around and this was going to be an amazing opportunity to join a practice that was established in the community for about 20 years at the time
About seven years ago, Rippy Davis stepped into the practice as an employee, creating an office with three pediatric dentists.
She is still there, but with a much-expanded role.
She and Dr. Hemann (who has been an associate at the practice for more than 20 years) bought the business from Dr. Cheng in November of 2020. Dr. Cheng still works two days a week, until she decides on full retirement.
Expansion is on the horizon.
Ground was broken in Champaign on March 3 for a facility that will more than double the space available for CU Pediatric Dentists. Rippy Davis hopes the new location (at 4301 Nicklaus Drive, Champaign) will be open this fall in either October or November.
“Before we even had decided to buy the practice from Dr. Cheng, we knew we needed to grow at some point,” Rippy Davis said. “Our current office (located at 1209 E. Colorado Ave., Suite 102, Urbana) was built about 26 years ago and a lot has changed over time.
“With three dentists working in the office, we need more space. We offer different levels of sedation than many general dentists, and we need more up-to-date spaces to do this as well.”
Construction is already under way.
“Apex Design Builds helped us navigate building a new office and has helped us design the office of our dreams,” Rippy Davis said. “We had many months of planning and getting things in order, and now get to see it come to life. It is just so exciting to have it actually happening.”
The greater Central Illinois area houses approximately 10 pediatric dental offices within two hours of Champaign-Urbana.
“We have patients that need pediatric care and drive from about a two-hour radius in all directions,” Rippy Davis said. “It was important to us to have a new location that is easily accessible by interstates.
“Right now, our location is not convenient for families coming from out of town. There is a desperate need for more access of care for pediatric dental in the state of Illinois, so the facility will help us reach more families.”
Rippy Davis and her colleagues routinely see patients up to 18 years old.
In her two-plus years as a co-owner (50/50 with Dr. Hemann), Rippy Davis has been on an expanded learning curve. She finds it very beneficial to have Dr. Cheng on board.
“Becoming a business owner has been a big transition,” Rippy Davis said. “Having Dr. Cheng still working for us has been nice because she was able to teach me things at the beginning.
“During our dental training, there is not a lot of education about the business ownership portion of dentistry, so a lot of it is learn as you go. Dr. Hemann and I split up the business tasks, and I have been primarily the financial lead.
“I have actually learned to enjoy this aspect of the job. I get to see how the practice ebbs and flows, and understand every little detail of each day-to-day performance.”
Among the patients seen at CU Pediatric Dentists are two that Rippy Davis knows well: Her children.
“My own children do come to the office,” she said. “Sometimes I see them and sometimes I have them see Dr. Hemann. I want them to be used to someone else taking care of him or her as well.”
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As if she is not busy enough owning a business and working full-time at the job as well as raising a family (Sloane has a brother, 2-year-old Beau), Rippy Davis has returned to the sport that enabled her to get a college scholarship. She helped coach the M-S junior high volleyball teams in 2016 and 2017 and, for the last four years, has been one of Stan Bergman’s assistants with the high school program.
Until interviewing for the staff opening, Rippy Davis did not know Bergman, just his reputation.
“I only knew he had an amazing career and I had played against his competitive Champaign Centennial teams while in high school,” Rippy Davis said. “He called me that day (that she first expressed interest in the opening) and said he would love me to join the program, and the rest is history.
“I have been his assistant for the last four years and it has been wonderful.”
Now that she has a front-row seat at the matches, she better understands why Bergman’s teams at Centennial and St. Thomas More fared so well.
“Very quickly, I realized why his teams were always so successful,” Rippy Davis said. “I had never had the opportunity to be around a coach that had such a knowledge of the sport and passion for the teams he works with. I really enjoy working with varsity-level players.
“I feel like they can come to me with questions and ask for life advice. I once was in their very shoes and I think they can see me as a mentor. I tell them every year that I love them like my own children, and I truly mean it. My daughter has also now gotten to grow up with such great role models in front of her in these players. We spend so much time together throughout the season and off-season that I share in all joys and struggles on and off the court.”
Rippy Davis finds rewards in coaching just like she did while competing. Her versatility as a player is helping her as a coach.
“Coaching is definitely different from playing,” Rippy Davis said. “I like to be able to work with all the different players on skill positions and to be able to see growth that they make.
“While playing, I do not think you are as aware of everything that is going on around you. You mostly focus on your own position. I was a player that started off as a middle in junior high, moved to an outside in high school, was a setter a few years in club, and finished in college more of a defensive specialist.
“I think because I have a history with all positions, it is fun for me to help coach all of them. I like to be able to see all positions flow together. I really enjoy the strategy of the game and looking at other teams and finding our strengths to help beat them.”
Even while on the sidelines, there’s one aspect which is unchanged for Rippy Davis from the time when she was wearing the jersey.
“In both positions, coach and player, I find myself being very competitive,” she said, “which sometimes can be hard because as a player I used to be able to make changes or help my team win. Now I have to rely on the players out on the court to make the changes.
“I tend to feel all the same emotions as the girls out on the court. I will leave a game sweating and with no voice just from being on the bench coaching.”
Though Rippy Davis participated in basketball and track in her younger years, there was a special appeal to volleyball.
“A lot of volleyball is strategy and I liked that, trying to outsmart the other team,” she said.
It takes an extreme passion for the sport to make the commitment to an increased workload during the season.
“Sometimes I think I am crazy being a mom, business owner and then taking on being a volunteer coach,” Rippy Davis said, “but I tell my husband all of the time that being a coach is something that completes me. I don’t have a lot of hobbies besides being a mom and being a dentist.
“Volleyball is a hobby that will never go away for me. I missed the sport after walking away in college and it’s so neat now to get to share it with up-and-coming players.
“I think back to the coaches I had growing up, not just in volleyball, but all sports, and think that if I can be that person that makes a difference, for at least a few girls over the years, all of the time away from my own family is worth it.”
Some of those coaches are role models who have tremendously influenced the person Rippy Davis became.
“I had several great coaches over the years,” Rippy Davis said, “but a few that really stood out from Mahomet were Lydia Gard and Genevieve Ramos.
“Lydia Gard was the varsity coach at Mahomet my freshman and sophomore years. At that time, it was not common for underclassmen to be moved up to the varsity level in volleyball. Coach Gard gave me a chance. About halfway through my freshman season, she let me start practicing with the varsity team and although I did not get playing time on varsity that season, I knew I should be there. She made me feel comfortable playing with older players.
“My junior and senior years, Coach Ramos came into Mahomet as the varsity coach. I had never had a coach like her before. She was a great friend to us all, but also pushed us very hard. She expected a lot out of us, but I liked that. She was more like the coaches at Illini Elite and it was amazing to have that at school-level ball as well. She was very competitive and wanted to win, just as I did.”
Rippy Davis is not only doing what she wants – both as a profession and as a hobby – but is doing so in the location of her preference.
“When I finished my residency program in 2016, Ben and I had decided we wanted to put down our roots in Mahomet,” he said. “We were both third generation Bulldogs and are so excited for our family to continue in this community. When we decided this, we always talked about wanting to give back to Mahomet-Seymour athletics.
“Ben was a three-sport athlete and I played volleyball and basketball, and all of these experiences had such a big impact on our lives. We still talk to many of our coaches, and cannot give back enough thanks for what these programs gave to us growing up. I was not surprised that one of us took a quick leap into wanting to help coach. I do feel a little guilty though, because Ben I know would love to help coach football or basketball, but until the kids get older, time is precious.”
The bigger point of the story is simply this: You can go home again. Quite successfully.
