For the first time, a Bend optometry office has won two of three statewide awards from the Oregon Optometric Physicians Association.

Kit Carmiencke won the CG Carkner Optometric Physician of the Year award, while Gabby Marshall won Young Optometrist of the Year, which is given to optometrists who have practiced less than 10 years.

The association selects three winners among its 300 Oregon members each year. This is the first time two winners came from the same office, said association President Scott Walters.

The optometrists practice at Integrated Eyecare, 452 NE Greenwood Ave.

The Student Optometrist of the Year award went to Nicole Rush-Erenfeld from the southern Oregon coast.

”It really is quite an honor because most of the awards in the past seem to go to the I-5 corridor,” Carmiencke said. ”It’s an honor for us to be in Central Oregon. It really was a surprise for both of us.”

Professional, humanitarian, political and community service, as well as the optometrists’ work to keep the field a viable profession through their involvement in the association drive the criteria for the award, according to the association’s reports.

Carmiencke was nominated by Candace Hamel of Estacada, a practicing optometrist and member of the association’s board of directors.

”He personifies what a doctor ought to be,” Hamel said.

”He is very intelligent, dedicated, and very caring. He does all the things a doctor needs to do.”

Carmiencke, 53, has practiced optometry 25 years in Bend. He has served 27 years with several organizations, including the American Optometric Association. In addition to making presentations to optometry groups in the Northwest, he compiled an association handbook titled: ”Someone is going to be looking at your patient records what are you going to do about it?”, a resource for optometrists facing an audit by a third party.

Much of Carmiencke’s community service has been directed toward helping first-offense juveniles. Carmiencke began working with the Deschutes County Juvenile Department in Bend 15 years ago, and more recently began an association with the National Children’s Vision Foundation to help establish a vision identification and treatment program for juveniles.

The program is unique because eye specialists meet one on one with the juveniles to teach them visual tracking and focusing skills, Carmiencke said.

He also is a past president of the Bend Rotary Club.

Carmiencke, who was also awarded Young Optometrist of the Year in 1982, nominated Marshall for this year’s award. Marshall, 29, has worked in Carmiencke’s office for three years and worked one year at Vista Optical in Bend River Mall.

Carmiencke said Marshall’s enthusiasm to improve the vision care for students in the Bend-La Pine high schools and for people in Honduras impressed him.

A 1997 graduate of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Marshall first traveled to Honduras with a student organization. She returned for her second trip to Honduras last year with an international group called Volunteer Optometrists Serving Humanity, which spent 10 days distributing free glasses and giving eye exams for pennies, she said.

”It’s something I’m totally addicted to,” she said. ”It makes you feel good to be able to help people who don’t have sources of eye care. Some people walked eight hours to get in line for an eye exam.”

Locally, Marshall worked with school nurses and teachers in the Bend-La Pine School District to train parents to give visual screening tests. Unlike the state tests administered at every school, these tests can identify far-sighted students, and assess if a student needs to work with an eye specialist to learn visual tracking skills to improve their classroom learning, Marshall said.

Looking ahead, Marshall said her goal is to make this screening process mandatory every year for every elementary student in the district.

Carmiencke said he wants to work to establish a community wide vision clinic for at risk and low-income kids to provide exams and vision training.

Sharing an office with the older Optometrist of the Year, Marshall said she’s learned the value of shadowing expertise.

”I’ve learned to be a better listener and to slow down and do a better job examining children,” Marshall said. ”He’s awesome with kids.”