Richard Lewis Ornauer, 86

DOVER - Richard Lewis Ornauer, newspaper editor and educator, died June 11, 2009, in Courtland Manor, Dover, of a stroke. He was 86. Mr. Ornauer had been city editor of the Nassau Daily Review-Star in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Long Island Press at Jamaica, N.Y., for 20 years. Previously he had been a reporter, copyreader and night editor at the Review-Star on Long Island, N.Y. He started his newspaper career as wire editor at the Coastal Georgian in Brunswick, Ga. Later, he was an assistant to the commissioner (public information) for the Nassau County (N.Y.) Department of Social Services, and Public Health Information Director for the Nassau County Department of Health from 1971 to 1987. He retired as director of communications for the New York State School Boards Association at Albany, N.Y., in 1989, and relocated to Dover. On Long Island, Mr. Ornauer was a member of the Merrick Board of Education for 26 years, four years as president; and a founding member of the Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) of Nassau County for 20 years, 18 as president. He served on the Executive Committee of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association for 26 years, two years as president. Mr. Ornauer was elected to the Board of Directors for the New York State School Board Association in 1979 and served ten years, six as vice president and eight as a member of the Executive Committee. During this period, he was a voting delegate from New York State to the National School Boards Association, served on several of its presidential task forces, and was president of its Northeast Region in 1987. He was a founding member and represented New York's Fourth Congressional District on the National School Boards Association's Federal Relations Network. He also served on the New York State School Board's Legislative Network for the 18th Assembly District. He was the recipient of the Man-of-the-Year awards from the Merrick Chamber of Commerce and Long Island Association of Special Education Administrators. He was named Educator of the Year in 1973 from Phi Delta Kappa, honorary education society. He received Distinguished Service awards from the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association in 1979 and 1987; in 1982 from the Floral Park-Bellerose School District (at which he attended elementary school); and in 1982 from the Public Television Station WLIW-TV (Channel 21) in Garden City. Mr. Ornauer received numerous citations for his work in journalism and public education. He was an honorary life member of both the New York State and National Parent-Teacher Associations. In Delaware, Mr. Ornauer had been an AARP Driver Safety Program (formerly known as 55 Alive/Mature Driving) instructor since 1993, Assistant State Coordinator 1996-2003, and Associate State Coordinator since 2003. He was a member of the AARP's Delaware State Leadership Council, AARP Delaware Executive Council, representing communications since 2004; on the Board of Directors of the Greater Dover Area Chapter 721 of the AARP for six years, serving as its public information officer and chairman of its Bylaws Revision Committee. He was a founding member of the Public Advisory Committee to the Dover/Kent County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) since 1993 and served as its chairman from 1995 to 2001. He was the Kent County appointee to Delaware Department of Transportation's Prioritization Systems Committee and to its Advisory Committee on Traffic Calming Devices, and the MPO's Project Prioritization Policy Committee. He also was Government Relations chairman of the Mifflin Road Neighborhood Association, member of the City of Dover Transportation Committee, City of Dover Public Safety Issues Implementation Committee and City of Dover Sign Amendment Advisory Committee. He also served as a volunteer communications officer for the Dover (now Mobility) Air Force Base Museum. A graduate of the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, Mr. Ornauer served as an apprentice reporter and copyreader on the Columbia Missourian and a radio news writer for station KFRU in Columbia, Mo. He was a life member of the Professional Journalists Society/Sigma Delta Chi, and member of both the Press Club of Long Island, and the Empire State Chapter. He is listed in Who's Who in America since 1977. His hobby was collecting all forms of Puffins, an Arctic sea bird. Mr. Ornauer, an Army sergeant major with both the 5202 and 5221st Engineer Construction Brigades in the Asiatic-Pacific area, served from 1942 to 1945. He participated in invasions at Biak Island in the Netherlands East Indies (now West Papua, Indonesia), Leyte and Luzon Islands in the Philippines. He also served at New Guinea (now Papua), Okinawa and Korea. In the United States, he was assigned to Battery C, 332nd Field Artillery Battalion in the 86th Infantry Division. He is survived by his wife, J. Rexene A. Ornauer, of Dover. They were married on Nov. 24, 1985, at Glen Cove, N.Y. His parents, Edwin L. and Emma H. Ornauer of Floral Park, N.Y., and Merrick, N.Y., died at 95 years of age and 104, respectively. He was the father of three children, David S. of Okinawa, Michael J. of Long Beach, N.Y., and SaraJo of Merrick, N.Y.; five stepchildren, T. Philip Ashford III of Lake Worth, Fla.; Mary Collier of Encinitas, Calif; Ann Menor of Lake Worth, Fla., William R. Ashford of Cherry Valley, N.Y.; and Jean Berrios of West Palm Beach, Fla; four grandchildren from Okinawa, and one great-grand-daughter on Long Island, NY; 15 step-grandchildren in Florida and upstate New York; and two step-great-grandchildren. Born October 19, 1922, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he was raised on Long Island, N.Y., residing in Floral Park and Merrick, before moving to Newtonville, N.Y., and Dover. Interment will be 2 p.m. Wednesday June 17, 2009 at Mt. Ararat Cemetery, Route 109 (Farmingdale Road), 1000 feet East of Southern State Parkway, Farmingdale, N.Y. A scholarship in his memory has been established at the Long Island High School for the Arts in Syosset, N.Y. Donations may be sent to Teresa Scaturro at Nassau Boces, 71 Clinton Rd., Garden City, N.Y. 11530. Also, contributions in his memory may be sent to Compassionate Care Hospice, 702B Kirkwood Hwy., Wilmington, DE 19805.