Cincinnati honors late health leader Dr. O’Dell Owens with street name

By:& Felicia Jordan CINCINNATI — Central Parkway at Ezzard Charles Drive will now bear a secondary name to honor a longtime Cincinnati health leader who passed away in November 2022. A street sign emblazoned with “Dr. O’dell Owens Way” was unveiled at the intersection Thursday morning by Cincinnati city leaders. Dr. O’dell Moreno Owens& died on Nov. 23, 2022 at the age of 73. Owens is best known for helping to establish the University of Cincinnati Medical Center’s in-vitro fertilization program, achieving the first “successful conception and delivery as well as the first pregnancy from the frozen embryo.” However, his impact on the city in which Owens was born continued beyond that first impressive achievement. The Cincinnati native grew up in the West End and graduated from Woodward High School before leaving the Queen City behind for Yale Medical School, where he earned both a MD and Master of Public Health. He then went on to complete a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at Harvard Medical School. He returned to Cincinnati in the 1980s, when he joined UCMC. Then, in 2004, he became the first Black person to serve in an executive office in Hamilton County’s history when he was elected...