Kevin Noah Howerton, z”l, passed away Sept. 5, 2021, at age 37 in Portland.
He was born Feb. 15, 1984, in Pensacola, Fla. While his legal name was Kevin, everyone (except his family), knew him as Noah. As a child, Noah lived in Pensacola, San Diego, Mililani, Hawaii, back to San Diego, and on to River Vale, N.J., where he graduated from Pascack Valley High School. He attended Arizona State University for one year, continued his education at Santa Barbara City Community College and graduated with a degree in psychology from Humboldt State University. Following college, he pursued work in computer science. In spite of his psychology degree, his real talents lay in coding, and he was fluent in several computer languages but most interested in Python. Over the years, he lived and worked in Brooklyn and San Francisco, settling in Portland. He missed New York for its diversity and vitality and dreamed of returning one day.
While untraditional in his expression, his Jewish identity and heritage were important to him. Noah is remembered by his family for the flash of his dimples and the mischievous sparkle in his eyes when he smiled. His humor was quick, insightful and incisive. He was intelligent, offbeat, empathetic and reflective. He was kind, loving and giving. Following a snowboarding accident in his teens, he struggled greatly with chronic pain and the accompanying mental health issues. Despite this, he lived his life with dignity and participated as fully as he could.