YOAKUM, Texas – In this country town, folks give out their phone numbers by the last four digits, the Tomato King and Queen are crowned at the annual Tom-Tom Festival and everybody knows Doc Watson.

Over the last 50 years, the family practitioner – part Marcus Welby, part Gary Cooper – delivered a good many of the residents and doctored most of the others in this town about 100 miles east of San Antonio.

AP

Dr. David Watson treats Dorothy Dean, 83, in Yoakum, Texas. Dr. Watson, part of the disappearing breed of family practitioners, has treated patients in Yoakum for 50 years.

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The night the hospital urgently needed blood for an obstetrics patient, David Watson rushed down to donate some of his O-negative, then stayed to call in other townspeople with the right blood type. (He knew who they were.) The day after a torrential rainfall, Bernice Watson remembers, her husband did not let flooded roads stop him from getting to an ailing neighbor.

He just hopped aboard a tractor, one arm around the driver, the other clutching his battered leather doctor's bag.

This month, Dr. Watson received the Country Doctor of the Year award, which honors a primary care physician who best exemplifies the spirit of rural practitioners. The award is given out by Staff Care, the country's largest physician staffing service, which hopes to attract more doctors to family practice.

"He's always right there when you need him," said Karen Barber, CEO of the Yoakum Community Hospital, where a wing is named after Dr. Watson. "There's never a second thought for him. He just does what needs to be done."

"I never wanted to be anything other than a family doctor," Dr. Watson said.

When he came to Yoakum from Baylor College of Medicine, he charged $3 for office visits and $5 for house calls. He often accepted other payment including homemade pies, fresh vegetables, venison and sausages. As a teenager, his oldest daughter, Debbie Austin, once chastised her father for letting patients pay with produce and baked goods. His response: "These people have paid me with what they could. As far as I'm concerned, they're paid in full."

"I remember feeling like I got a big lecture without being yelled at," Ms. Austin recalled. "My dad really is a doctor, a true doctor."

At 78, he still sees up to 30 patients a day at the Yoakum Medical Clinic, the office where he has worked for half a century, visits another 30 patients during daily rounds at the hospital and a local nursing home, treats children at the Bluebonnet Youth Ranch and continues to make house calls.

"When I can't do crossword puzzles anymore, I'll know it's time to quit," said Dr. Watson, a voracious reader and student of history who is as ready to deliver a wry joke as a comforting word. "But as long as I'm reasonably healthy, and have a little sense, I'll keep doing it."