Howard Dendurent Biography

Howard Dendurent, born June 23, 1941.

Howard and Harold, unlike Mike Dendurent, always had another Dendurent in their classes until the later high school and college years. Howard was a missionary in Brazil (1961-63) for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University in May, 1966, and a Master of Arts degree from BYU in August, 1967 (both degrees in Political Science with a History minor). He worked as a budget analyst for the U.S. Department of Commerce from 1967 to 1983.

In 1983, he began working for the Federal Office of Management and Budget, where he continues to work. In early 1999, when a co-worker was unable to fill a speaking commitment, she asked Howard to speak to the group about the Budget in her stead. She explained to the group that Howard was "an expert about the Federal Budget." Howard quipped: "I remember the day I became an expert on the Budget. It was in September, 1983, when, after working on the Commerce budget for 16 years, I started working at OMB." After the presentation, the group wrote to Howard's co-worker that the presentation "was more than they could have expected." Howard guesses that they had low expectations from a "Federal budget expert."My most vivid childhood memory is of moving. While I don't remember myself, my mother tells me that when we left Pine Bluff (Arkansas) and returned to Kansas in 1945, I was riding behind the back seat in the rear window well. When Dad drove through rain on a muddy road (and had trouble going straight), I woke up and complained that Dad should drive straight. I don't remember moving from Topeka to Lindsborg, Kansas (other than the fact that I had a sunburn on my back the next day in church, and people kept patting me on my back -- causing me extreme pain), but I do remember loading a farm trailer and towing it behind the car to Pocatello, Idaho. Later, we loaded two farm trailers and towed them from Pocatello to Pomona, California. [I guess we really prospered in Pocatello, since we picked up enough stuff to fill up a second trailer and a car to pull it.] I had enough moving to last a lifetime, so perhaps that is why I have stayed in Northern Virginia since I graduated from BYU in 1967 and have only had three jobs (depending upon how you count the changes while in a single organization). I reenforce my anti-moving attitude as much as I can by helping others move. There are a lot of people moving into and out of Northern Virginia.

The Murney Dendurent/Orie Bell Mellott descendants and ancestors. I am preparing this volume, most likely in loose-leaf form, for the June 2000 Dendurent reunion. Officially, I began this work in early 1998. After asking many times, my wife Grace convinced our son David to get her a computer, which he did for Christmas 1997. Knowing that my wife would not use such a thing very much, I thought it would be good to put into the computer the family history I had copied from my brother Hal (he gathered a lot of information in the 1960s) and from other sources over the years. I went to the Family History Center to gather information and dug through a Xerox box of stuff. I even found a picture of Murney and his twin sister Josephine as babies on their mother's lap and a picture of their father, Joseph. When I reached the point that I had done as much as I could, I thought: "Now that I have put all this stuff onto the computer, it is easy to share with others. I wonder if anyone is interested?" It turns out that a lot of people were, and I believe that my writing to a number of cousins was a part of what led to the idea and the planning for the Dendurent June 2000 Reunion. [I think Toni Gates first raised the idea, and then Margaret Meyer, Mike Dendurent, Murnice Hamilton, and a bunch of other people ran with the idea and did all the hard work that made it happen.]

I find it interesting that a man of God told me in January 1961, when I was not quite 20, that I "shall lead out in your father's home ... and shall assist those of your family who may be interested, in creating Books of Remembrance for your people. You shall search the genealogies of your fathers ..." I have wondered about that over the years, but every time I tried to do research on my family, I had no success, was easily frustrated, and gave up. Let me note here that the Murney Dendurent/Orie Bell Mellott descendants and ancestors contains no information that I have researched. I am grateful to each person who has given me information to copy, including my brother Hal, Ronald Kroon (who created an awareness of the family of Josephine Dendurent for those of us in Murney's family), William L. Urban (who wrote of our early ancestors "just because&" even though he is not a descendant of the Dendurents), to each of you who have checked and provided corrected information, and to many unnamed persons who did research so that I could copy it. There are errors, and when you find them, please let me know so that I can correct them. Further, life goes on -- couples marry, have children, people die or change jobs. Thus, a history of this nature does seem well suited for a looseleaf binder rather than as a bound book. I also thank Margaret Meyer, Murnice Hamilton, Mike Dendurent and other planners of the Dendurent 2000 reunion for their idea to gather biographical information to be included in this volume. It will be much more interesting reading than a listing of names and dates.