Holbrook, Leona

Professor of physical education at Brigham Young University, 1937-1974. Member of board of directors of U.S. Olympic Committee beginning in 1968.

Leona Holbrook (1909-1980) was an educator in Utah. She was born 7 April 1909 in Lehi, Utah, to Horace Cook Holbrook and Leona Grace Garn. She attended the University of Utah, and in 1937 became the first chair of the women's physical education department at Brigham Young University. She retired in 1974, and died 30 June 1980 in Utah.

Author, editor, and professor of physical education at Brigham Young University.

Leona Holbrook (1909-1980) was a faculty member in the Brigham Young University Department of Physical Education.

Leona Holbrook was born in Lehi, Utah, on April 7, 1909, to Horace Cook Holbrook and Leona Garn. After living in New Zealand while her parents served a mission, she was accelerated to high school at the age of thirteen. She attended East High School in Salt Lake City from 1922 to 1925. At age sixteen, Leona entered the University of Utah, declaring physical education as her major. There she was elected president of the Women's Athletic Association and awarded the Phi Delta Pi Cup.

Her first teaching position was at West Junior High School in Salt Lake City in 1931. In 1935 she was awarded a masters of science degree from the Teachers College at Columbia University, New York City, as well as a doctorate degree in education in 1950. After working in various leadership positions in several camps for women and girls, Leona accepted a teaching position at Brigham Young University in 1937. At BYU, Leona had a large part in planning the construction of the Richards Building. Later in her life she donated three hundred thousand dollars to the dance and women's physical education programs at BYU. She passed away at the age of seventy-one in her Provo home, of natural causes.

Leona Holbrook received numerous honors and acted in many leadership positions in her lifetime, including the president of the American Camping Association (Wasatch Section) (1946), president of the National Assocation for Physical Education of College Women (1964-1966), president of the American Assocation for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (1966-1967), recipient of the BYU Alumni Distinguished Service Award (1967), member of the board of directors of the United States Olympic Committee (1968), enshrined in the Helms Athletic Foundation Hall of Fame (1971), recipient of the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Teaching Award (1977), director of the National Olympic Academy III at BYU (1978), and recipient of the Luther Halsey Gulick Award (1974) and the Dorothy S. Ainsworth Honor Award (1979).