By Taylor Whittemore
Dr. Oden has been teaching at Tri-City Prep for the past eight years, and we would like to take a moment to appreciate all he has done from the school by getting to know him better.
Lynn Oden was born and raised in Anaheim. In high school, he played football and tennis. He was also an avid hiker; this is reflected in the fact that he has hiked to the top of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous US, multiple times. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
He has been married to his wife Gail for forty-seven years, and they have two sons – Lance, a teacher in Texas, and Leif, a nurse in Seattle. They lived together in Taiwan for four years, which Dr. Oden said was great for their family. In 2005, they moved from Texas to Arizona. They also have a goddaughter named Silvana who used to be a foster child from Brazil. She is currently living in Texas.
Some students may not know that Dr. Oden worked with NASA as a navigator, tracking space shuttles by using radar data to calculate the shuttle’s position and velocity. In fact, Dr. Odin was in Mission Control when the Challenger blew up, and he had to remain in the room during the first stages of investigation into the cause of the accident.
In his spare time, Dr. Oden likes to watch films and television, read, and ride bicycles. He would consider Shawshank Redemption to be his favorite movie and NCIS to be his favorite television show.
Five years ago, he also went to Africa with a group from his church, primarily to Ethiopia and Kenya. Dr. Oden mentioned that the communities there were “eye-opening and interesting”.
Physics offers Dr. Oden the “challenge of keeping fresh”. Although he is retired, he continues to teach and share his knowledge with others. His favorite physics lesson to teach is the mechanics because “you can see what you’re talking about” and there are multiple demonstrations that can done regarding the subject. Dr. Oden is an inspirational teacher, and we are honored to have him at Tri-City Prep.
Denobis 