GIVING BACK: Dentist Joe Carnley says he loves to give back to his profession, so he regularly serves as a visiting faculty member at schools such as the University of Florida and Louisiana State University. He is also a Dale Carnegie instructor, where he teaches management courses.
NOT FLYING: Not taking to the skies these days, Carnley is keeping himself busy digging nose first into books. He is an avid reader of history books and has a passion for the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
Whether it was sleeping in boats at Hudson’s Marina as a youngster or pulling barrel rolls behind the stick of a World War II era T-6 Texan, Joe Carnley has always played by his own rules and has no regrets.
“I’ve got a little bit of a wild streak,” the longtime Destin dentist said with a chuckle.
After spending five months at the Mayo Clinic battling throat cancer, Carnley has hung up his flight suit and sold his planes. But he is cancer free — and back to work, changing the lives of Destinites one smile at a time.
The early years
Growing up about 60 miles north of Destin in the rural community of Paxton, Carnley says he got his first brush with dentistry after traveling to Andalusia, Ala., for routine dental work.
“Everyone in the dentist’s office was so nice and they would let me watch them pour molds and set things up,” he remembers. “I was fascinated by it.”
And while those early encounters left a lasting impression on his young mind, like many other boys his age, sports were his true love. As a guard on his high school basketball team, Carnley and his teammates won the state championship during his senior year.
“We averaged like 100 points a game,” he said. “We were like the movie “Hoosiers” — that’s pretty much our story.”
Growing up in the Panhandle, the doctor spent time working at The Gulfarium and Hudson’s Marina, where he admits, he would spend the night in boats from time to time.
College and a new love
His talents on the court afforded him a partial basketball scholarship to Western Carolina College. At the time, Carnley said he really wanted to be a basketball coach, but the lack of job security changed his mind.
While hitting the books, Carnley found a new passion — flying. He attempted to join a pilot program for the Navy/Air Force, but his eyesight prevented him from joining.
“I wanted to be a pilot so bad,” he told The Log. “That just burst my bubble.”
With a degree in chemistry and biology in hand, Carnley landed a job at Dupont as a chemist in 1966. During his time at Dupont, flying lessons became a regular part of his life.
While he enjoyed his job, the rigorous shift work and management of a few hundred employees wasn’t exactly what he was looking for.
Dental school
Drawing off his early experiences in the dentist’s office, Carnley decided that he would attend dental school, which he graduated from in 1971.
As part of his continuing studies, he would take a two-year internship with the Air Force and find himself stationed in San Bernardino, Calif.
With his internship completed and looking for a job, a dental product distributor convinced the Paxton native to return to the Panhandle, more specifically Destin, where there were very few dentists in the early ‘70s.
With Shoreline Towers still under construction, Carnely found himself staring at Destin’s emerald green waters and sugar white beaches from the 12th floor of the unfinished condo.
“I looked out… fell in love,” he said.
Carnely would go on to purchase the unit he found himself gazing from that day. Destin was now his new home.
Flying high
After joining the local Air Force Aero Club, Carnley was able to earn his pilot’s license and can fly twin-engine planes and commercial aircraft.
With more than 3,000 flying hours under his wings, his plane of choice is the T-6 Texan, a plane that was first flown in 1935 and saw action in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
Having rented aircraft for a while, Carnley and his friend Max Matthews purchased a T-6 Texan in 1999.
The “bigness and the noise” of the T-6 is what drew Carnley in. Being behind the stick of the World War II-era plane sent tingles down the doctor’s spine each and every time he took off and landed.
“It’s exhilarating,” he said. “It’s like flying in heaven.”
As he spent more and more time in the air, Carnley took up formation flying and began to participate in air shows. The thrill of formation flying made Carnley’s adrenaline flow.
“You have to look at the other plane at all times,” he said. “You can’t look at your controls, you have to know where everything is.”
Always wanting to give back to the community, Carnley and the members of the “Destin Warbirds,” which included Charles DuPlantis and the late Tim McDonald, would frequently take veterans for flights in their vintage machines — reliving memories of their glory days.
“It meant a lot to us to be able to do that for them,” he said.
Tragedy
In the past year-and-a-half, Carnley has seen more than a handful of his fellow pilot friends lose their lives to accidents.
In March of 2010, Birmingham neurosurgeon Herman Evan Zeiger Jr. and his wife Peggy were killed when they crashed their T-6 into the Gulf of Mexico about a half-mile off Topsail Hill Preserve State Park. Just months later, fellow Warbird Tim McDonald, owner of Fort Walton Beach Machining, was killed, along with his brother-in-law, when his plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near the Crab Trap.
More recently, Carnley said he lost another friend to a flying accident and was devastated by the news.
Given these personal tragedies and the rising cost of fuel (nearly $6 a gallon), Carnley said it was time to let the stick go and hang it up, so he sold both planes that he owned about a year ago.
“I miss it; I miss it a lot,” he said.
Cancer scare
While he was still grieving the losses of his close friends, Carnley would face another round of bad news after he was diagnosed with cancer.
After the diagnosis, he would spend five months at the Mayo Clinic battling throat cancer His latest battery of tests came back negative and he is cancer free.
“They told me I had no chance,” he said of his initial diagnosis.
During his uphill fight, Carnley said it was the support of his fiancé Tina Anderson and the letters and emails from his friends and patients that kept him going and upbeat.
“I’ve been very lucky,” he said. “I feel good, blessed.”
Taking it easy
Now that he is back in office, Carnley said he is still taking it slowly as he continues to get back to full strength. While he is not flying these days, he is keeping himself busy reading. Next on his list of to do’s is to get back on his Harley and hit the golf course.
Dr. Canley’s office is located in the Mae Center at 385 Harbor Boulevard. For more information call 850-837-2189.
Settling back into his office is exactly where Carnley wants to be — it’s where he feels most comfortable. Working with his hands, being with his staff and interacting with his patients puts him at peace.
“I really just love people,” he said. “I love to talk to them and hear their stories, find out what they are about — I love coming to work.”
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