MONTGOMERY, AL, June 18, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Charles Suhor, PhD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Suhor celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Dr. Suhor is a retired educator who had impact for six decades in the fields of English education and jazz history. Born in New Orleans in 1935, he attended public schools in the city's Ninth Ward. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in English education from Loyola University in 1956 and a Master of Arts in counseling from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. in 1957. His thesis was a multi-factored comparison of university music students who did and did not claim interest in jazz. He obtained Advanced Certification in English education at the University Illinois in 1967 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in that field from Florida State University in 1981. His dissertation was a historical study of the evolution of non-print media in English instruction.
Dr. Suhor began his career as a public high school English teacher in New Orleans from 1957 to 1966. Among his students were acclaimed authors James Nolan and Thomas Sancton. He took a sabbatical leave in 1966 when selected for the Experienced Teachers Fellowship program at the University of Illinois. He co-edited a collection of essays by the Fellows, The Growing Edges of Secondary English, published the following year by the National Council of Teachers of English.
He returned to New Orleans in 1967 and was appointed K-12 English Supervisor for the public schools. He served in that role during a decade of experimentation in education, gaining national attention for innovations in literature, writing, oral language, and media. He chronicled the years of educational controversy in his 2019 book, Creativity and Chaos: Progressivism in New Orleans Public Schools and the Nation 1967-1977.
His leadership and extensive writing and speaking led to his 1977 appointment as Deputy Executive Director of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in Urbana, Illinois, a position he held until retiring to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1997. At the Council he specialized in secondary education and anti-censorship activities. From 1983 to 1987 he also headed the ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Clearinghouse on Reading and Communications Skills, a federal data-gathering program housed at NCTE. The ERIC staff prepared digests of hundreds of scholarly articles and essays and published eight professional books a year. He co-authored the ERIC volume Teaching Values in the Literature Classroom: A Debate in Print with his brother, Bernard Suhor, a Catholic school teacher. He wrote eight high school literature and composition textbooks for major publishers, including the 1980 Scholastic Composition series. In 1993 he cofounded the Assembly on Expanded Perspectives on Learning, an NCTE subgroup that explores the boundaries of education beyond traditional disciplines and methodologies.
Dr. Suhor served as a consultant to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Review Panel, and the National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE) Project to Revise Evaluative Criteria. He wrote over 100 professional articles and was a columnist for English Journal, Educational Leadership, and Literary Cavalcade.
Dr. Suhor had a parallel career as a jazz musician, journalist, and historian. OffBeat magazine noted that he "pioneered jazz journalism in New Or¬leans." In the 1960s he was New Orleans Correspondent for Down Beat, writing the first national article about Preservation Hall. He was Contributing Editor for jazz and education for New Orleans magazine from 1968 to 1975. His 2001 book, Jazz in New Orleans: the Postwar Years through 1970 won the New Orleans International Music Consortium award for excellence in music research.
Dr. Suhor's jazz scholarship was rooted in his early musical and writing experiences in New Orleans. Encouraged by his brother Don, a gifted clarinetist and alto saxophonist, he took up drums at age 13. He played casual engagements with artists like Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Buddy Prima. He played four years with the big band at Loyola University, winning the annual Talent Night competition with an extended demonstration solo. In the early 1960s he taught drums privately and made drum instruction recordings for an education label. Among his students was Johnny Vidacovich, who became an internationally known jazz drummer. He continued weekend engagements until 2007. The celebrated traditional jazz pianist Armand Hug wrote that he is "one of the finest musicians I have known." Modern jazz bassist Bill Huntington cited him as "one of the best modern drummers of the fifties."
In the 1980s, Dr. Suhor combined his literary and musical interests. He organized cooperatives of writers and musicians for jazz and poetry programs in Illinois and Alabama, performing both as poet and percussionist. He lectured about relationships between jazz and language with musical examples by Rick Margitza, Ellis Marsalis, and others. In retirement he taught jazz history for two sessions in the community education program at Auburn University, Montgomery. From 2005 to 2008 his presentation on black and white influences in jazz was an Alabama Humanities Foundation offering. In 2016 he sought to place his brother, Don, in historical perspective, writing biographical articles for Tulane University's Jazz Archivist, The Clarinet, and allaboutjazz.com and compiling a two-CD set for Jazzology Records, Don Suhor: New Orleans Clarinet and Alto Sax Virtuoso.
Dr. Suhor's education writings are archived at the University of New Orleans Library. His jazz writings are held at the Tulane University Jazz Archive.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Suhor has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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