Dr. James Rider
by Clarke Davis
The 45th anniversary of the Valley Falls Medical Clinic will be celebrated with a public event from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, July 8.
The University of Kansas Health System will hold the event in the clinic’s parking lot with complimentary refreshments.
Blood pressure and sugar checks will be offered. A corn hole contest will be held and there will be face painting, a petting zoo, and a coloring contest for the children.
Acquiring medical physicians was an all out effort on the part of the Valley Falls community 50 years ago and those efforts were realized in July 1978 when Drs. James V. Rider and Fred Russek Jr. arrived in town.
The community was building a new medical clinic for them but it wasn’t quite ready when the doctors got here. They were provided with rooms at what was then the Valley View Nursing Home to practice until the new clinic was finished Aug. 14.
The doctors were acquired through the National Health Service Corps, who paid the doctors’ salaries for the first two years. Russek chose to leave at the end of two years, but Rider bought the clinic and established his own family practice.
He will be honored Saturday along with Dr. Larry Campbell, who partnered with Rider in 1991 and announced his retirement in April 2021. However, he is still working part time.
“I asked Duane Stoskopf [the bank president] if he thought I could make a go of it here,” Rider said.
“Time will tell,” was the banker’s response.
“I guess time has told us,” he said.
Jim and his wife, Judy, were from the city—namely Gladstone and Shawnee—but they were looking for a small town.
“This town had all the essential services and we liked the school . . . all 12 grades in the same place,” he said. “And there weren’t any gangs.”
The doctor believes the success of their two sons can vouch for the quality of education in Valley Falls. Jared finished second in the business school at the University of Kansas and Jordan was an academic All-American in basketball at Rockhurst University.
Speaking in regard to his longevity in the community, he recalled one of the funniest things that has happened to him.
He was about to perform a C-section on a patient when he was shocked by a surgical nurse assistant who said to him, “You were the first person to see me naked.” After a short recovery, he asked what her maiden name was and realized she had been one of the many babies he delivered.
Rider is now seeing patients who are the third generation in some families.
And then there’s the worst thing that happened during his 45-year tenure. It was his job to serve as coroner when a propane truck hit a train at the Valley Falls K-4 crossing that killed four people in July 1986.
Among the many changes in the health field that the doctor faced during his tenure was giving up private practice in 2000 and becoming employed by the Sisters of Charity that owned St. Francis Hospital in Topeka, and that has now been taken over by the KU Health System and Ardent Health Services.
Rider and Campbell had also expanded to clinics in Nortonville, Winchester, and Oskaloosa that were later closed by their employer.
The Valley Falls Clinic specializes in family practice, geriatric care, wound care, and hospice.
Rider, 72, said he has no retirement plans.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m looking forward to welcoming a new woman doctor to the clinic next June. Then maybe Dr. Campbell can fully retire.”
The Riders have six grandchildren. Judy, who was formerly employed at the clinic, is a medical technologist.