Andrew Rinker, M.D.

Andrew Rinker, M.D., a prominent New Orleans pediatrician, passed away peacefully at home on March 10, 2016. He devoted his life to his family; the care, development and well-being of children; public service and his passion for fishing.

Dr. Rinker (Andy) was the youngest of four children. Ronald Reagan, the future U.S. President, who, at the time was a student and quarterback of the football team at Eureka College, Illinois, was his babysitter and taught him to swim. In high school, Andy was the quarterback of the football team, head of the student council and editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper The Nautilus. During summers he taught canoeing and rowing at the Boy Scout Aquatic Schools and in camps in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, where he served as waterfront and camp director. He also earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He always had a keen sense of history as his boyhood residence garden had historical significance: stone monuments there commemorate places where Abraham Lincoln spoke on his road to the White House.

He attended Harvard University and the University of Illinois and graduated from Tulane University in 1953 with a Bachelor of Science in Geology. At Tulane, he received the W.A. Tarr Award as the outstanding earth sciences major and was a member of the Sigma Gamma Epsilon honorary earth sciences society. He also was a member of the Tulane chapter of Alpha Phi Omega national service fraternity. In 1957, he also graduated from the Tulane School of Medicine and was a member of the Nu Sigma Nu medical fraternity and received the New Orleans Pediatric Society Award for the top graduating senior.

He completed his Tulane residency in pediatrics at Charity Hospital of Louisiana at New Orleans in 1960 and thereafter served for two years as a captain and as the chief of pediatrics of the U.S Army Medical Corps at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, during which time he received the Army Commendation Medal. He also led geological expeditions through the regional caves and other formations and to the Trinity Site where the first atomic bomb was detonated and Trinitite, a new mineral, was created.

Upon returning to New Orleans after his military service, Dr. Rinker joined the Diaz-Simon Pediatric Clinic. Within a few years, he established his own medical practice where he would frequently treat up to 100 patients per day. He greatly enjoyed helping children and their parents. Many of his patients enjoyed his disposition and manner so much that they refused to move on to internists and other specialist doctors when they reached adulthood. Dr. Rinker was especially pleased when he had the opportunity to treat the children and grandchildren of his former patients.

In addition to treating his patients in his offices, he was more than occasionally asked for medical advice from patients, or more likely, his patients’ parents, when he saw them at his home, their home, at grocery stores, at social events or even while on his exercise walks with his wife Frances. The parents of one patient even wrote in chalk on the sidewalk outside of their home, on a path Dr. Rinker was known to take his early morning walks, that they wished Dr. Rinker would stop at their home as he passed their house to examine their sick child. He good-naturedly complied and would smile upon remembering similar events. He was also known to answer the frequent phone calls of anxious parents at all hours of the night. His often laughed and feigned frustration when parents would argue with him that the child’s grandparents (who were not medically trained) had insisted on a different and inappropriate home-remedy course of treatment for their child.

He was active in numerous medical professional societies. Dr. Rinker was chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on School Health, the Council on Child Health, and the Committee on Infant and Pre-School Children. He was certified by and a member of the American Board of Pediatrics and a member of the Louisiana State Medical Society, the Orleans Parish Medical Society, the Greater New Orleans Medical Society, the New Orleans Pediatric Society, the Louisiana Pediatric Society, the Irish and American Pediatric Society and the American Medical Association. He wrote numerous published medical articles for professional journals.

Dr. Rinker was a clinical professor of medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine where he also served on the medical school’s admissions committee. He received several commendations from the school for outstanding service as a community preceptor. He also was a member of the medical staffs of Ochsner Medical Center, Southern Baptist Hospital, Children’s Hospital and Touro Infirmary. He was the Chief of Pediatrics at East Jefferson General Hospital and a visiting staff member at Charity Hospital of Louisiana. In his last few years of practice, he was affiliated with the Ochsner Children’s Health Centre in Metairie, Louisiana.

Dr. Rinker managed to balance his professional career with his commitment to public service. Dedicated to the development and education of children, Dr. Rinker was an active volunteer at his six children’s schools. However, his commitment to education did not end with assistance to his children’s schools. He was elected on a city-wide basis to serve on the Orleans Parish School Board from 1965 to 1971. Philanthropist Edith Stern, along with community leaders, George Denegre, Harry McCall, Jr., Alton Ochsner, Harry B. Kelleher, Mrs. Paul McIlhenny and Suzanne Ormond, persuaded the physician to add to his already significant commitments and run for a seat on the Orleans Parish School Board. His duties, although unpaid, required participation at weekly meetings often lasting late into the night, attendance at numerous graduation ceremonies and constant interaction with students, teachers, parents, principals, unions, architects, contractors, insurers, national, state and city authorities, concerned citizens and the media. During his tenure, he helped lead the New Orleans public school system through the devastation of Hurricane Betsy and major teachers’ labor union strikes. Most notably, he led the Orleans Parish schools through the tumultuous period of integration following Congress’s enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

When Dr. Rinker became president of the Orleans Parish School Board, he was the youngest president of a US big-city school system. He was at the time quoted in local news coverage as saying: “Public education in Orleans Parish is approaching excellence. We could have the finest school system in the U.S. if we will devote the time, money and patience.” He added the most formidable obstacle facing public education here is possible adverse public reaction by either the white or African-American communities to complete integration of the public schools and faculty integration by 1969 as mandated by the federal government.

The times were so highly charged that angry segregationists even burned a cross on Dr. Rinker’s front lawn in the presence of his children, all of whom were then under eight years old. As President of the Orleans Parish School Board, Dr. Rinker testified before Congressional committees on education, health and funding issues. He was even threatened with imprisonment, if the Orleans Parish School Board did not act faster. He strongly believed in fulfilling his official duties to the letter of the law and genuinely strived to provide all students access to quality education.

Among his many accomplishments during his tenure, Dr. Rinker proposed and introduced the first comprehensive health examinations of public school children at the schools, helped introduce sex education classes, reduced bulging class sizes by fifty percent, secured the financing for the public schools by obtaining voter approval for a one-cent city sales tax dedicated for the public schools, established the first special education (or special-ed) classes, introduced Project Head Start, introduced the first computers to schools, enhanced teachers’ professional status and compensation, increased recruitment of teachers, obtained accreditation for schools that had not previously met requirements, decentralized administration, appointed a full time medical director, began the installation of air-conditioning in the schools and led major construction projects for schools.

He was a member of the Louisiana School Boards Association, National School Boards Association, Steering Committee of the Big City School Boards Section of the National School Board Association, Board of Managers of Delgado Community College, Total Community Action Committee, City of New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, Executive Board of the New Orleans Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, Chairman of the Health and Safety Committee of the New Orleans Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, The Young Men’s Business Club of New Orleans and the chairman of Operation Reach, a drug abuse prevention program. He served as a troop committeeman of Boy Scout Troop 55. He was also a member of the Holy Name of Jesus Church Committee on Development. New Orleans Archbishop Philip Hannan asked him to serve on the Archdiocese’s Board for the Hearing Impaired known as the Chinchuba Institute.

In 2004 and 2005, Dr. Rinker and his wife, Frances, worked in the Order of Malta’s Medical Mission Program at Christo Sana in Granada, Nicaragua, caring for impoverished and ill children.

Despite his extensive medical, professional and civic commitments, Dr. Rinker always had time for his family, attending school events for all six of his children, assisting with their school work, school and sports activities, participating in their scouting activities and trips and encouraging them in different hobbies, studies and adventures . He took them on exciting family holidays, imparted to them his passion for good cooking and taught them sailing on his Columbia Challenger on Lake Pontchartrain.

He also taught his children to participate actively in his own passion—fishing. In the family garden, he built a 37-foot fiberglass Lafitte Skiff named Miss Fitz in honor of his wife, Frances Fitzpatrick. Dr. Rinker drove his boat on his regular Wednesday fishing trips with friends and family members. He often assisted other mariners and towed in the vessels of distressed fishermen. His usually successful fishing pursuits resulted in his delivery of a large catch to the delight of his family and neighbors who received a share of this bounty.

Dr. Rinker enjoyed his fishing to the extent that he usually organized a fishing expedition with his wife on their vacations. He fished from the rivers of Ireland through the bonefish shallows of the Bahamas to the sea depths near Mexico and the frigid waters of Alaska.

Andrew Rinker was born on December 16, 1930, in Eureka, Illinois, and was the son of Alta Patience Clemens and Jacob A. Rinker. He married his true love, Frances Marian Fitzpatrick, of Shreveport, Louisiana, on December 23, 1955. Frances and his six children, Andrew, Walter, James Clemens, Frances Marian Ritch, Mary Elizabeth Lawrence and Patricia Susan Clayton, and six grandchildren survive him. Dr. Rinker was a long time member of the School of Design, a charter member of the Krewe of Bacchus and a life member of the Southern Yacht Club. As descendant of several patriots, his name is listed among the Sons of the American Revolution.

A funeral Mass will be held on Monday, March 14, 2016, at 1:00 pm at Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home, 5100 Pontchartrain Blvd., New Orleans, La. A reception will follow at a different location. All friends and family are invited. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Associated Catholic Charities of New Orleans, Jesuits USA Central and Southern Province or United Way of Southeast Louisiana. To view and sign the guestbook, visit www.lakelawnmetairie.com