Maxwell Frost: “my friend Donnie Mintz was buried yesterday in New Orleans--the victim of a heart attack that took his life too soon at…”

“my friend Donnie Mintz was buried yesterday in New Orleans--the victim of a heart attack that took his life too soon at age 53. Donnie led a remarkable life and will be missed by many. Donnie and I met 38 years ago in 1958 when we were teenagers attending a leadership training institute of the National Federation of Temple Youth in Kresgeville, PA. Two southern boys at a camp of highly talented teenagers, mostly from the Northeast and Midwest, Donnie and I became lifelong friends. Our lives intersected many times in the years that followed. Donnie was elected regional president of the Southern Federation of Temple Youth [SOFTY], and I was elected vice-president of the Texas-Oklahoma Federation of Temple Youth [TOFTY]. Later, Donnie was elected national president of the temple youth movement, and I was elected national treasurer. Donnie attended Columbia University in New York where he became a Fulbright scholar and ultimately returned to Louisiana to earn a law degree from Tulane. While he attended Tulane, Donnie helped establish the annual direction speakers series and later was named to the Tulane Leadership Hall of Fame. Though at different schools, we were members of the same college fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, and served in the same Army Reserve program [JAG] but in different cities. During those years, we would see each other at Army Reserve summer camps. We shared a love for politics and talked about it often.”