Lexington High School graduate Dr. Lynn Ringenberg has had an impressive career in the military, medical, and academic sectors.

Now, in semi-retirement, shes prepared for her next challenge: seving as president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, or PSR. PSR is a physician-led non-profit that works to protect human life from the gravest threats to human health and survival: nuclear weapons, climate change and toxic degradation of the environment, according to a statement from the organization.

Ringenberg moved to Lexington as a toddler and graduated from LHS in 1964. Her mother, Myra, still lives in the area and her father ran a sporting goods store in town for many years, she said.

After high school Ringenberg attended Kearney State and went to medical school at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She did her residencies at the University of Florida and Bowman Gray in North Carolina.

After completing medical school and her residencies, Ringenberg joined the Army. She was stationed for a while at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Between active duty and the reserves, she spent a total of 26 years in the armed forces. She retired having achieved the rank of Colonel. The military was a great experience. I would have kept going, but Ive had a couple of bouts with cancer and had to get out of the Army, she said.

Ringenberg had a private practice in Clearwater, Fla., and in 1990 she joined the staff of the University of South Florida in Tampa. She worked her way up to professor and retired after 20 years in 2010. She remains a professor emeritus of Pediatrics and is still involved with the university in a part-time capacity. Im setting up an alumni group, and there are other projects Im involved with as well, she explained.

Her retirement gave her more opportunity to get involved with non-profit work, she said. I co-founded a PSR chapter in Tampa in 2008, and in 2012 we expanded that statewide, Ringenberg said.

We focus on things we think are the gravest threats to human survival: climate change and nuclear weapons, she said. What makes PSR different, she said, is the emphasis on health.

We might be the only non-profit that talks specifically about health, she said. While there are no shortage of climate change-deniers in the United States, Ringenberg said the warming of the planet is already a detriment to human health worldwide.

We are seeing worsening allergies and asthma in children, and kids require more medication at a younger age to deal with it than we saw 20 years ago, she said. Severe droughts are affecting the food cycle, and worsening weather leads to more severe storms. These things have a direct impact on health.

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Lex native elected president of national non-profit