Leona Holbrook
Leona Holbrook was a long-time professor of Physical Education at Brigham Young University.
She studied both athletics and art at the University of Utah, and after obtaining her degree, she taught P.E. at junior high and high schools. When she began her tenure at BYU in 1937 as Chair of the women’s Department of Physical Education, she was only one of two women in the department. Her classes were more than exercise of the body. She also engaged the minds of her students with writing assignments, readings, and presentations.[1]
Nena Rey Hawkes, one of Holbrook’s students, noted, “Winning was much too narrow for the broad spectrum Dr. Holbrook envisioned possible to teach on the playing field, for the playing field to her was a microcosm of life”[1]
She earned both her master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University (1935 and 1950, respectively).[2]
Holbrook was president of the National Association for Physical Education of College Women and of the American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. She was also the first female member of the United States Olympic Committee. She participated in the International Olympic Academy in Greece where she lit the Olympic torch.
She was instrumental in the planning of the Stephen L Richards P.E. building and the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse. In 1967 she was honored with the BYU Alumni Distinguished Service Award and in 1977 with the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Teaching Award. The BYU student body voted her Woman of the Year three times.[3] She was honored with the Luther Halsey Gulick Award by the American Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation and the Clark W. Hetherington Award by the American Academy of Kinesiology and Physical Education.
She continued to teach part-time after her retirement in 1974. She died from cancer on June 30, 1980.