Issue date: 7/24/08 Section: NEWS

Nearly 350 relatives, friends and colleagues paid final respects Wednesday to UNT physicist and teaching assistant Daniel Michael Henry in Grapevine.

Troy Taylor of the Denton County Medical Examiners Office said Henry was found last Thursday at 10:42 p.m. in his Denton apartment. He was 27 years old. Taylor said he died of complications from Type 1 diabetes.

The Lucas Funeral Home in Grapevine was full as relatives and friends remembered and spoke about Henry's life. Funeral home owner, Lawrence Hammond, led the memorial.

"We're here to celebrate a life that ended far shorter than we could imagine," Hammond said.

Henry's father, John Henry, said he remembered Daniel as a loving son who was passionate about everything he did.

"He liked the Cowboys," he said. "He could see the games here locally, and we couldn't get them up in New York, so he would text me every time the score changed."

Henry's father said his son was interested in comic books, video games and had a love for science.

"He would come up to New York in the summers, take us out into the yard, and show us things in the telescope and tried to explain to us what we were looking at," Henry's father said.

Henry was also a member of the Los Bastardos shadow cast who performed alongside the cult classic, "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

Leah Jones, casting director of the show, said Henry loved anything with Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne, and was a key player in the shows.

"He was definitely one of our favorites onstage for Rocky because he did exactly what he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it," she said.

Amy Cassell, Los Bastardos cast member and Henry's former girlfriend said that Henry's diabetes "secretly tortured him," and that he didn't expect to live past 30.

"He was one of the nicest guys I had ever met," Cassell said.

Chris Spurlock of the physics department said Henry taught the undergraduate astronomy courses after the department offered him a position as a teaching assistant.

"The best times I ever had with him was going out to Moss Lake to the remote observatory and helping him calibrate the telescopes and jamming to Ozzy at the same time," Spurlock said. "He always accepted you for who you are and had a beautiful heart."

Carol Bowden, administrative assistant for the physics department, said Henry always volunteered to help students who were in trouble, and always helped new students feel comfortable.

Astronomy programs director, Ron DiIulio, said Henry was one of his special projects for eight years.

"He was the guy that I called on to help us develop the Monroe observatory and he used to work long, long hours at it," DiIulio said. "He was a veteran."

Henry's research at UNT involved extrasolar planets, worlds beyond our solar system.

Jeff Hillary, friend and former roommate, noted how Henry would have been shocked by the turnout of his memorial, including a Dee Snider lookalike.

"I think when your memorial is reduced to standing room only, you've won," Hillary said.

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