Keystone Central Foundation Alumni & Friends Introduce Honorees for Hall of Fame
The Keystone Central Foundation Alumni & Friends Association is pleased to introduce each inductee into the 2024 class of the Keystone Central Hall of Fame.
Inductees will be honored at a ceremony at Central Mountain High School on Tuesday, April 30 at 5:30 PM. Tickets, congratulatory messages, and ads can be purchased for the event program at www.kcfoundation.com or calling 570-660-1306. The ceremony will also honor the Keystone Central Foundation’s Friends of the Foundation Giving Society and key community partnerships.
Inductee: Judith Laubscher Sensenbrenner, B.E.N. Class of 1959
Judy Sensenbrenner’s path to becoming a physician started with a casual conversation at the old Mill Hall High School, on Fishing Creek, when she was in 7th grade. A student teacher from Lock Haven State College asked her if she would play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue on the piano for him during lunch time, and afterward asked what she planned to study after high school. Judy replied, “I will probably be a nurse, like my mother.”; The student teacher replied, “I have seen your grades. You should be a doctor!” Judy had never heard of a woman doctor, and knew her family would have to sacrifice for tuition even locally. The student teacher replied, “With your grades you could get a scholarship!” That young man enabled Judy to visualize an exciting path for her future. What a wonderful example of the ability of teachers to mold and encourage their students!
Judy was an intense student and a fine musician. She sang, played clarinet in the band as well as piano and organ – often for school events, such as baccalaureate, and graduation. She learned to multitask – doing her homework watching TV. She participated in the first Science Fairs held by Penn State and Bucknell University after the push for science education in high schools across our country that resulted after Russia’s 1957 launching of Sputnik. Bald Eagle-Nittany math teacher Jess Long was her most supportive and most challenging teacher. She was the only girl in his higher math classes and graduated as BEN’s valedictorian in 1959.
Judy continued her education close to home at Bucknell University in Lewisburg majoring in biology. She excelled and qualified for a special program for two summers in genetic research at Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine. It was there that she learned to sail. (She is now a licensed boat captain for the Chesapeake Bay.) Some Bucknell years were spent studying and working in the usual biology tasks for the extra funds always needed for the college expenses not covered by scholarships. In 1963 Judy graduated second in her class at Bucknell with a BS in biology, earned membership in the Phi Beta Kappa and was educated debt free.
The next year, Judy entered Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore MD with 73 students, of which only 5 were females and received her MD degree in 1967. Judy had her internship and residency at the Hopkins affiliated, Baltimore City Hospital and then returned to Johns Hopkins Hospital for a two-year fellowship in pediatric genetics. She is the author or co-author of many medical publications, including the first description of a rare genetic condition with multiple anomalies in two
young siblings, now known as Sensenbrenner Syndrome. At that time the human genome had not been sequenced, but it is now understood to be due to changes of at least two different recessive genes, that result in skeletal, kidney, brain and growth abnormalities.
Judy married Lyle Sensenbrenner, MD, an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology at Hopkins on July 6, 1966, who was involved some of the earliest unrelated bone marrow transplantations, and was a founding member of the International Society of Experimental Hematology, which began their life of world travel as he helped to disseminate the results of advances in medicine to other nations around the globe. He elucidated that aplastic anemic was an autoimmune phenomenon, discovering the first
cure with cytoxan, which is still the current therapy for that disease. During that time, Judy sang with the Baltimore Symphony Chorus for 12 years, even for one production at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She provided pediatric care for Baltimore City and County Health Departments, as well as Harford County MD.
They moved to Detroit, Michigan, when Lyle was recruited to start Michigan’s first unrelated bone marrow transplantation program at Wayne State University. Judy obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of Michigan, and worked with architects at Wayne State for several years helping to develop the physical plans for their new Cancer Center.
Judy was recruited back to Maryland for the last 16 years of her career to head the Wicomico County Health Department in Salisbury, on the lower eastern shore of Maryland, a busy job with about 250 employees in many departments: Environmental Health, Maternal and Child Health, Family Planning, Communicable Disease, Mental Health, Addictions, Dental, Infectious Diseases, Emergency Preparedness, Preventive Health, Medical Assistance Transportation, which required many partnerships with other community organizations such as the schools, colleges, businesses and prisons. Lyle was recruited back to Baltimore to open the University of Maryland’s Stem Cell Transplant Center, and then joined Judy in Salisbury to join the Oncology Program for a few years before their joint retirement from medical practice, moving to Arnold, MD across the Severn river from Annapolis, where they continued to enjoy their lifelong passion of traveling and sailing/boating. Their oldest son, Ted, is Director of
Development with the Boat US Foundation and the youngest son, Eric, is Head of Global Tax Group at Skadden, Arps Law Firm in Washington, DC. They have three 17 year old granddaughters, who also have their captain’s licenses, and are athletes and scholars and one 13 yr. old grandson, who loves music, computers and basketball.
Full tributes for all inductees can be found at kcfoundation.com. Others honored in the Class of 2024 include: Alison Bechdel, Martha Sykes, Sr., Michael K. Hanna, Sr., and Dr. Sue Kodad-Rex.
