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Dr. Miles Markley
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There is no need to enlarge Miles Markley in death, for he is one of the giants in the dental profession. He died Jan. 31 at age 96. He wanted very much to live past 100.
Miles will always be a friend to remember, and his is a life to celebrate. A scholar until the day he died, he didn’t want to learn when it was too late. He reveled in the marvel of discovery, saying "yes" to knowledge, which he pursued all his life. He was driven to pursue excellence in everything he undertook. He was proud of the profession we had chosen and expressed it through his teaching, which brought him a national and international reputation. I became well acquainted with Dr. Markley some 50 years ago when he formed the Mile Hi Study Club. There were 12 members, including myself.
Miles graduated from the dental school at the University of Denver. Prior to dental school, he had studied engineering, which aided him in many new developments such as ultraconservative cavity preparations for preserving strength in teeth and threaded wire pin-reinforced amalgam restorations, always of course with a rubber dam. We would spend one to three years studying each topic, such as gold foil, accurate gold castings, occlusion or periodontics. One of his favorite lecture themes was "preservation of the natural teeth for a lifetime of service." He always carried on a lively correspondence with colleagues, researchers and friends worldwide. A keeper of meticulous records, he analyzed why things fail, even though they might have served well for 30 or 40 years.
He liked to teach and he taught us well, and we will be forever grateful to him. A hard and demanding taskmaster, Miles required the best we had at our meetings and clinical sessions. He had awesome energy and drive. He might seek our counsel, but in the end it was his guidance and instruction that introduced us to new methods. An individual of great dignity and self-discipline, he had intolerance for less than the very best. Once in a lecture, he described us as squabs, comparing us to birds that hold their mouths open for predigested nourishment. He encouraged us to search for ourselves. At Miles’ urging, study club members bought their first clinical cameras and attended a Toast-masters Club to improve their lecturing skills. The cameras recorded our work and enhanced our own lectures on conservative, innovative principles in dentistry. We learned painstakingly to mount our slides in glass to better preserve them, and to avoid focus problems.
Dr. Markley received so many national and international honors during his career that it would be difficult to list them all. They came from academies, dental societies, universities and the Department of Defense, which awarded him the Distinguished Public Service Award for his years of service as a dental consultant to the U.S. Air Force. Recognizing the impact he made on the dental profession, the University of Colorado School of Dentistry named a nine-chair clinic the Miles Markley Continuing Education Clinic. In 1981, the CU Board of Regents presented Dr. Markley with the University of Colorado’s Distinguished Service Award, recognizing him as "one of the world’s foremost dental practitioners, who has set a standard for the entire profession to follow."
A leading spokesman against junk food, he required his patients to seek food that was nutritional, filling and satisfying, aiding both body and mind. A disciple of exercise, he started his day by running up and down the basement stairs. When asked why, he said, "It doesn’t take any time because I require 30 minutes less sleep. Everything functions more efficiently, including sleep."
In the spring and summer, Miles and his wife, Winifred, turned their home into a show-place. A scientific horticulturist, Miles was very knowledgeable in organic vegetable and flower culture. The Markley garden was a popular destination for garden tours, as their roses and irises were well-known among local gardeners.
All of us have fond and amusing memories of Miles and Winifred. They were world travelers, as Miles was a global lecturer. Mile Hi Study Club members and their wives were often invited to the Markley home for great dinners and armchair travel to far-away places. For many years, fruit juice cocktails were the before-dinner option and then to our amazement, Markley, who had been on a recent trip, switched to scotch on the rocks, so the parties became much more relaxed.
I’m reminded of a particular instance during a meeting of the still-active Markley Panhandle Study Club, another group Miles led for years. During a meeting in Oshkosh, Neb., which featured the late Fred Mahoney speaking on the Pritikin diet, questionnaires were passed out on personality screenings. Miles came out as a strong and domineering type, and Winifred as a meek and compliant type. Miles turned to Winifred and said, "Winifred, you’re not like that at all. You will simply have to fill out another questionnaire and do it right."
We celebrate his life and are grateful for his friendship, remembering an invaluable lesson he taught us: Never be content with what you know—there is always more.
To paraphrase John Donne, his death diminishes us.
