<Begin Segment 12>

RM: When, you also got involved in medical society.

JK: [Laughs] Yeah, well...

RM: Can we hear about that?

JK: Yeah, it's one of those things. I got to know all the Tacoma specialists quite well, and lot of other doctors in those three years I spent in... and so, they never had a non-Tacoma person be the president of medical society, Pierce County Medical Society. And they never had a non-Caucasian [Laughs] up to that time. And I got elected on the board, and then, as one of the vice presidents. Somebody decided it was time for a change, and submitted my name, and they came to me, they said they're gonna do that. So I said, "Well go ahead if you feel you want to do that." And so I was elected president of the Pierce County Medical Society. And that opened up a lot of other things that happened to my life because of that, which meant being on board of banks and being on board of -- I was the eastern Pierce County draft, on the draft board. And Captain Chester Chastick, who was the Washington State director of the, you know, came to me and said, he went through the records, "There's no minority group that's ever been on the draft board for any board in the state of Washington." So he would like to have me be, be one, so that people know that we are trying to change things around a little bit, you know. And so I agreed and spent three years on the draft board. Three years as a draft board member and then three years as a medical advisor which was not much of anything to do.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.