William Lehr, Class of 1953

William Lehr ’53, died October 31, 2019. He was born on January 28, 1932 to the late Paul and Helen Lehr in Plains, NY during a blizzard…a harbinger of things to come.
Bill graduated from Otterbein in 1953 with a degree in Chemistry. During his time at Otterbein, he was a part of Pi Beta Sig (Pi Sig) fraternity. A tall, scrappy, curious lad, Bill was smart and resourceful. A fact born from the placement of a cow on the 4th floor of Towers Hall at Otterbein college in Westerville, Ohio where a student prank required a crane to remove said bovine once realized that cows can go up stairs but not down…

After Otterbein William began working at Airco in New Jersey. He married and divorced Lucette Jenni ’55 after moving to Altlanta. Fron there Bill moved to South Carolina where he became a founding partner of Tanner Chemical Company, he remained there until its sale. He moved to Charleston to pursue his dream of sailing and living life on the next gust of wind. His magnum opus, EnviroMarine, was his passion. An enterprise composed of his own inventions to keep our waterways clean and free of gas and harmful oils which he labored until a year before his death.

William is survived by his children Douglas Lehr, Leslie Lehr Daly, Amy Lehr Camp and William Lehr as well as grandchildren Andrew and Matthew Lehr, Joseph, Kathleen and Elizabeth Daly, William Camp, and Samuel and Ellington Lehr.