Mr. Lesh died November 6, 2009 at St. Joseph Hospital in Chicago.  

He was born December 15, 1946, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the only child of Warren and Roberta Lesh.  His family moved to Lawrence in 1948.  He was a 1965 graduate of Lawrence High School. 

Mr. Lesh earned a bachelor's degree in French with honors from Kansas University in 1969.  He received a master's degree in French in 1971 and pursued a doctorate in French at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  He also received a master's degree in Italian in 1974 from Middlebury College in Vermont and in 1986 he received a Master of Librarianship from Emory University in Atlanta.  He was admitted to the Phi Kappa Phi honor society in 1971.

He spent two and a half years in study abroad programs in France at the University of Paris, the University of Bordeaux and the University of Toulouse.  He had fluency in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

He taught French in private high schools in North Palm Beach, Florida and Atlanta from 1975 to 1985.

Beginning in 1986, he was the Africana cataloger at Northwestern University Library in Evanston, Illinois.  He retired in August 2009.

Survivors include his mother, of Lawrence and many cousins.  He was preceded in death by his father on May 9, 2008.