Obituaries: Dr. Howard M. Lenhoff( Jan. 27, 1929 – July 12, 2011)

Dr. Howard M. Lenhoff, 82, a part-time resident of Crescent City for many years, born on Jan. 27, 1929, died Tuesday July 12, 2011, at his home in Oxford. Funeral services and burial were in the town of his birth, North Adams, Massachusetts. In Oxford, Miss., a memorial service will take place early this fall, and  for his many friends in Crescent City, a  celebration of his life will be scheduled later.

Dr. Lenhoff was a scientist recognized as a world authority in his field of biological research. He was also a humanitarian activist who achieved several goals many thought were beyond reach.

After graduating from Coe College in Iowa, he earned a Ph.D.in Enzymology at the McCollum-Pratt Institute of the Johns Hopkins University. As First Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, he  was appointed Acting Chief of the Biochemistry Section of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Hospital. He held positions at Howard University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and later was Director of the Laboratory for Quantitative Biology at the University of Miami.

Along his career path in science he served as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, as a research fellow of the National Cancer Institute, Fellow of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the Biophysics Section, Fellow of the Weizmann Institute of Science,of the Israel Institute of Technology, of Ben Gurion University, as a Visiting Professor at Hebrew University, and as Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University in England.

At the University of California, Irvine, in addition to his work of over 30 years as a researcher and professor, he held a variety of administrative posts, including Chair of the Academic Senate and Dean of the Graduate Division. His publications include a myriad of articles and a dozen books. These were primarily in science, but in diverse other areas as well. Of  special pleasure to him in his last years was his appointment as Adjunct Professor of Biology at the University of Mississippi.

Lenhoff’s work as a humanitarian was marked by the same qualities as his  science and his scholarship. It was innovative and creative and diverse. One of the great joys of his life was his participation as a leader in the successful rescue of the Jews of Ethiopia, detailed in the book “Jews, Black Jews, and Other Heroes,” published in Jerusalem in 2007.

His activities on behalf of developmentally disabled musicians proved to be instrumental in the establishment in Lenox, Mass., of a unique summer camp for musical young people who had Williams syndrome and later the Berkshire Hills Music Academy for the developmentally disabled  now celebrating its 10th year in South Hadley, Mass.

Most recently his concern for the education of the young people of the Mississippi Delta developed into the “Guardian Angel Initiative” of Youth Opportunities Unlimited, Inc., to enable children of four impoverished counties to attend school with dignity and pride.

Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Sylvia Lenhoff, daughter Gloria now living in Frankfort, Ky., and son Bernard of Berkeley, Calif.

Memorial donations may be made to Youth Opportunities Unlimited, P.O. Box 294, Marks, MS 38646.

— Submitted by Family