Frazier Edwards helped bring Arkansas its first dental school. Now he’s accusing a former colleague of fraud, saying he wasn’t fully paid for his work in landing it.
Edwards is suing Merritt Dake and OneHealth Education Group LLC of Little Rock, the company that worked with Lyon College to develop new dental and veterinary schools, over allegations that also include breach of contract. Dake is a member and manager of OneHealth, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit, filed last year in Pulaski County Circuit Court, provides new insight into the founding of the dental school, which Lyon College opened in June, and the collapse of both the Batesville liberal arts college’s partnership with OneHealth as well as the deal to buy Heifer International’s downtown Little Rock Campus.
The complaint says the company began working with Lyon in late 2021 and later had a services agreement worth $45.2 million for OneHealth to partner with Lyon in establishing the professional schools. The dental and veterinary schools were to move into the Heifer campus, and OneHealth negotiated to buy the campus for that purpose.
But the deal fell apart in November 2023. Months later, OneHealth and Lyon ended their partnership.
Edwards’ suit blames Dake for the Heifer deal’s collapse.
Dake said the deal fell apart because of high interest rates, but the lawsuit said he spent too much of OneHealth’s time and money on real estate “side-projects.”
The lawsuit also said that Dake told Edwards in a March 2024 call that he had settled with Lyon on behalf of OneHealth and the services agreement had been terminated.
“Merritt also told Frazier that Frazier would not be receiving any of the promised compensation despite repeatedly assuring Frazier that he would be compensated for his time and effort,” the lawsuit said.
In 2022, Dake hired Edwards at a salary of $20,000 a month and granted him a 20% ownership interest in OneHealth, making his pay package projection worth $7.4 million over 10 years, the lawsuit said. In total, Edwards was paid $304,227, the lawsuit said.
Dake said he also lost money on the collapse of the plan to bring the graduate schools to Arkansas, according to a transcript of a phone conversation between Edwards and Dake that was included as an exhibit in Edward’s lawsuit.
“I’m 7 million bucks in the hole — off this whole deal,” Dake told Edwards, according to the March 2024 transcript.
In court filings, Dake denied Edwards’ allegations, including that Edwards had an ownership interest in the company or was ever a member of it. (In the lawsuit, Edwards also is suing on behalf of OneHealth, saying he is a member and manager of the LLC.)
“We firmly believe the claims in this lawsuit are without merit and do not reflect the reality of OneHealth’s former collaboration with Lyon College, where many talented individuals contributed meaningfully to the project,” Dake’s attorney, Graham C. Talley of the Little Rock office of Mitchell Williams Selig Gates & Woodyard, said in a statement to Arkansas Business. “We strongly disagree with the allegations and look forward to defending our position in court.”
The allegations in the lawsuit could also be viewed as a cautionary tale.
“The lesson is that when you make a promise to someone to pay them money, and they change positions based on that promise, you better deliver,” one of Edwards’ attorneys, Abtin Mehdizadegan of the Little Rock office of Hall Booth Smith, told Arkansas Business. “Promises ought to be enforced.”
After the collaboration with OneHealth ended, Lyon continued with the project. The Lyon College School of Dental Medicine opened in Little Rock on June 30 with an initial class of 80 students. It occupies seven floors of the 12-story building that once housed Arkansas Blue Cross & Blue Shield and Alltel.
Pending accreditation, the Lyon College School of Veterinary Medicine plans to open in Cabot and admit its first group of 120 students in 2027, a Lyon spokeswoman said.
The college declined to comment on the allegations in Edwards’ lawsuit, but referred to the April 2024 news release that said Lyon and OneHealth had ended their collaboration.
In the news release, Lyon President Melissa Taverner “expressed gratitude for the guidance and support provided by OneHealth.”
Dake’s Problem
The idea for the dental school can be traced to Dake, a founder of the dental support organization Rock Dental Brands of Little Rock.
“There was a dental workforce shortage in Arkansas and no pipeline to generate employees for Rock Dental’s clinic locations,” Edwards’ lawsuit said.
So Dake and Drew Ramey, Rock Dental’s former chief strategy officer, thought that creating a dental school in Arkansas would solve the dental workforce shortage and improve the state’s poor oral health.
But neither Dake nor Ramey had any experience in launching a school. So in 2020, they turned to Edwards, who had helped start the osteopathic medical school in Fort Smith. At the time, Edwards was an academic administrator at the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Smith.
Edwards and Dake first pitched the idea of the dental school to the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education of Fort Smith, which offers several programs including the osteopathic school.
During the meeting, the Fort Smith administrators proposed that they could take over the project and obtain accreditation for the dental school if Rock Dental could provide the funds for it, the lawsuit said.
The Rock Dental team didn’t agree and the discussions eventually ended, the lawsuit said.
But Edwards stayed in touch with Dake and Ramey.
In December 2020, Edwards saw a news release saying that the former Army & Navy General Hospital in Hot Springs was vacant and in search of a tenant.
Edwards met with Dake and Ramey to discuss the potential of placing the dental school there. It was also around that time that Edwards suggested developing a veterinary school as well because Arkansas also lacked such a school.
But after conducting more investigation into the proposed Hot Springs location, the three decided that the site had too many hurdles to overcome, including the cost to renovate it. They then focused on a location that Dake “had long admired — the Heifer International Campus,” the lawsuit said.
Edwards, however, was contributing “nearly all of the legwork on the dental and veterinary school projects,” the lawsuit said.
Dake assured Edwards “both orally and in writing, that he would be compensated for the use of his intellectual property, in the development of the dental and veterinary schools,” the lawsuit said.
Dake and Edwards also decided in 2021 that instead of creating standalone dental and veterinary schools, they would get through the accreditation process faster if they partnered with an established school.
The plan was for OneHealth to provide initial services related to getting the dental and veterinary programs accredited and then provide ongoing services to the academic partner under a services agreement that would provide payment to OneHealth, the lawsuit said.
Meanwhile, on June 1, 2021, Dake left his position as CEO of Rock Dental and, as a result, wanted to become more involved with the school projects, the lawsuit said.
Edwards also decided in April 2021 that he would not be renewing his contract with Arkansas Colleges of Health Education when it expired at the end of June 2021. “I believe there is promise in our efforts and would like to make it a priority,” Edwards said in an April 2021 email to Dake.
School Ties
In August 2021, Edwards arranged a meeting with David Burks, the then-president of Harding University of Searcy. Harding and OneHealth had several discussions about a possible partnership.
But Dake “had concerns about Harding’s affiliation with the Church of Christ and requirement that any school be located in Searcy,” the lawsuit said.
As that potential partnership dissolved, Edwards thought Lyon College could be a partner for the schools.
Lyon also was interested and agreed to start working with OneHealth in November 2021.
Edwards’ role in OneHealth was to handle the academic, accreditation and strategic business planning efforts while Dake focused on securing the Heifer campus and financial backing for the projects, the lawsuit said.
Dake reported to Edwards in a Dec. 23, 2021, email that the planned purchase of the Heifer property was in good shape and Heifer’s board had just agreed to sell the property to OneHealth.
“I was always at 99%, but with this change I’m 100% certain we have Heifer locked in,” Dake wrote.
Within a few months, Lyon would officially announce its plans for the graduate schools.
Collaboration Ends
In April 2022, Taverner told Arkansas Business that Lyon was developing the plans to open dental and veterinary schools, which would be the first in the state.
Edwards and Dake were on the call with Arkansas Business for the announcement. “This just became a personal project of mine,” Dake said at the time.
Edwards said, “we are here to support Lyon and what they’re doing. And we’re going to be looking at bringing together all of the necessary resources that we can to help them make this a reality.”
But in September 2023, Dake removed Edwards from working on the school projects, effectively terminating his employment at OneHealth, the lawsuit said. Dake said, however, that he would provide Edwards with “a severance buyout consistent with his 20% stake in OneHealth,” the lawsuit said.
Meanwhile, Dake had missed four closing dates on the Heifer campus, leading to delays in securing the campus for the school projects, the lawsuit said.
By November 2023, Heifer said the property sale was off because it had not closed. Making matters worse, in December 2023, Heifer sued to keep OneHealth’s $550,000 earnest money. (Both sides resolved the dispute, and the case was settled out of court in November 2024.)
After the Heifer project fell through, OneHealth and Lyon also ended their plans to work together, and Dake reached a settlement with Lyon, the lawsuit said.
In March 2024, Dake told Edwards that he wasn’t going to receive any of the proposed compensation, according to the lawsuit. Dake said in his answer to the complaint that Edwards wasn’t entitled to any more compensation. Dake also said in the filing that Edwards was properly paid as an exempt employee.
In his March 2024 phone conversation with Edwards, Dake said that “we’ve never agreed to anything,” according to the transcript.
“We did agree,” Edwards said.
About a month later, a joint statement from Lyon and OneHealth announced “the conclusion of their collaboration.”
In the release, Taverner thanked OneHealth for its support and guidance.
Dake said the state of Arkansas will benefit from having dental and veterinary schools. “I look forward to watching the progress from Lyon College’s team,” Dake said in the release.
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