Dr. Cathleen Ann (nee Earhart) Ohlendorf, 75, who devoted her personal life to her family and her professional life to teaching and researching science, died Monday, April 21, 2025, at her home in Delano, Minnesota.

She worked for years beside her husband, Dr. Douglas Ohlendorf, at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Campus. He survives her, along with a brother, Keith Earhart of Collinsville, Illinois, a sister, Dr. Karen Earhart Gauen, of Rochester, Minnesota, and nieces and nephews. Dr. Cathleen Ohlendorf was preceded in death by her son, Keith Douglas Ohlendorf, in 2004.

Dr. Ohlendorf was born in Granite City, Illinois, in 1949 to Reba and Anita Earhart. The family moved to nearby Collinsville, Illinois, where she and her future husband were members of the high school band when they met on a band trip in 1965. They married in 1971.

She held a bachelor’s degree in biology from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, a master’s in neurobiology from Washington University in St. Louis and a doctorate in biology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. She was a pre-doctoral assistant and research associate working with her husband at the University of Minnesota’s medical school from 1991 to 2013.

When the couple lived in Oregon before coming to Minnesota, she taught chemistry and biology in secondary school and served on the state science textbook evaluation committee. She was named Chemistry Teacher of the Year for the Southern Oregon District of the American Chemical Society, in 1981, and Oregon Science Region II Teacher of the Year by the Oregon Science Teachers Association, in 1982.

She was a member of the National Science Teachers Association, Phi Kappa Phi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Crystallographic Association, Minnesota Academy of Sciences and American Society for Microbiology. She was an author of 34 published papers on various aspects of science. Her work on dioxygenases “changed the field”.

The Ohlendorfs were avid skiers who also participated in music programs and youth ministries at several churches. In Minnesota they were active in politics serving as district and state officers. In later years, they became breeders of Shetland Sheepdogs and raised champion show and agility dogs. The couple credited one of their dogs with saving their lives when it woke them one night. Its peculiar behavior alerted them to a fast-moving fire from which they barely escaped as it destroyed a new home in Delano they had occupied just 10 days before. They rebuilt the home.

Visitation for Dr. Ohlendorf will be from 4 to 8 PM Sunday, May 4, and continue Monday morning from 10 to 11 AM  at the Iten Funeral Home, 300 Third Street North, in Delano The funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Monday, May 5, at the funeral home, with interment at 1 PM at Lakewood Cemetery, 3600 Hennepin Avenue, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The family asked for donations to the Salvation Army in Minneapolis in lieu of flowers.