COLUMBUS, Ohio — Father George Leonard Cochran, O.P., 84, a member of the Dominican Friars’ Community of the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, died on March 30 at Mohun Health Care Center, St. Mary of the Springs, Columbus.
Born George Hunter Cochran in Tampa, Fla., a son of the late George Cochran and Louise (Gailmard) Cochran, he attended Providence College’s pre-ecclesiastical program. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 1951 and served in Germany. In 1955, he was honorably discharged with the rank of staff sergeant and entered the Dominican Friars of the Central Province of St. Albert the Great at St. Peter Martyr Priory in Winona, Minn. He made his simple religious profession there on August 31, 1956.
Father Cochran earned a B.A. in philosophy from St. Thomas Aquinas College in River Forest, Ill. and a Master of Arts degree in theology from Aquinas Institute of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa. On June 2, 1962, he was ordained a priest at St. Rose Priory in Dubuque by the Most Rev. James J. Byrne, D.D., Archbishop of Dubuque.
In 1980, Father Cochran joined the Providence College faculty, where he taught English, philosophy, and humanities before retiring with the rank of associate professor in 2002. He also served as assistant dean of undergraduate studies. At the 2001 Academic Convocation he received the Providence College President’s Distinguished Faculty Award.
Father Cochran is survived by two cousins and their spouses, as well as by his Dominican brothers.
A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on Thursday, April 4, with burial in the Dominican Friars’ Cemetery on the Providence College campus.