Ørnhøi was raised in Trondheim, earned his university entrance certificate in 1954, and graduated from the teacher's college in Levanger in 1958.
He moved to Østfold, where he started his career as politician as the chair on the school board in Tune Municipality in 1961.
[1][2] He continued his teaching career until 1961, when he joined the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation as a producer, primarily for children's programming.
Since Ørnhøi left parliament, he moved to Sandøya, an island in Tvedestrand Municipality in southern Norway and has been involved in a number of appointments.
He was in the leadership of Nei til EU, the central organization opposing Norwegian membership in the European Union.