John Palmer Sevenair

He received his undergraduate degree from MIT and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Notre Dame. Following a post-doctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech, he arrived in New Orleans where he spent his professional career at Xavier University in the Department of Chemistry achieving the rank of Professor and Chairman of the department. John was a philanthropist who would loan Xavier students tuition money for medical school. Upon retirement he was awarded the rank of Professor Emeritus. John loved Xavier, teaching and his students. He was deeply committed to student success and pioneered an innovative learning system that resulted in outstanding achievement for students of Organic Chemistry, a system that has long been mimicked by other departments as well as other universities across the nation. John coauthored 7 publications in peer reviewed journals related to educating minorities in STEM fields. He also wrote 9 books (textbooks/ test banks/student manuals) during his tenure at Xavier University.

Once in New Orleans, John immersed himself in the New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club, the Louisiana Ornithological Society and the Orleans Audubon Society. He was an adventurer, a birder, a backpacker, a spelunker, a history buff, an astronomer (chasing solar eclipses across the country), a scuba diver and a world traveler. He once joined a group and drove from the tip of South Africa to the Mediterranean telling wild stories of the transit of the Central African Republic rivers with no bridges. He lost a tremendous amount of weight on that trip. He crawled into most of the caves in Louisiana and elsewhere. He traveled the world in search of birds and has seen almost 6,000 of the birds of the world. He enjoyed searching for mammals around the globe, especially whales and dolphins. He gave marvelous slide shows of his adventures.

John was able to sleep whether lying down, sitting down or standing up. As Gwen Smalley explained “John had such a high IQ that his batteries would run down frequently and needed recharging”! John enjoyed many meals at the home of Gwen and Al Smalley along with the home of Ann Duffy among others. Gwen always called John “an eager eater”. He often “napped afterwards” in a living room chair.

John wrote/edited The Sierra Club Guide to the Delta Country, Trail Guide to the Delta Country, and Guide to Louisiana Trails and the Delta Country which included maps and details to SE Louisiana for birding, cycling, hiking, camping and canoeing. He worked along with the New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club to get Jean Lafitte National Park established. He did a scientific survey of Monk Parakeets in the New Orleans Area and successfully fought to get the bird listed on the Official Louisiana Bird List. John also wrote several unpublished science fiction novels.

John is survived by his brother and sister-in-law Peter and Becky Sevenair of Rhode Island, a cousin Joan Lillevand of California and long-time great friends Lydia Guillot and Gwen Smalley and a plethora of friends who loved and respected him. John’s ashes will be spread across the Gulf of Mexico where he enjoyed many hours on a boat searching for sea birds and mammals as well as diving among the coral reefs of the Flower Garden in the southern Gulf.

A Celebration of his Life will be held on Saturday, March 2nd from 2PM to 5PM at the Community Church Unitarian Universalist, 6690 Fleur de Lis, New Orleans, 70124.