LEVENDOSKY, Charles (Leonard) 1936-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born July 4, 1936, in Bronx, NY; died of colon cancer March 14, 2004, in Casper, WY. Editor, educator, and author. Levendosky was the editor of the Casper Star-Tribune's editorial page, as well as the author of books of poetry. Despite his later work in journalism, his original area of study was mathematics and physics, and he earned a B.S. in 1958 and a B.A. in 1960 from the University of Oklahoma; he then received a master's in education from New York University in 1963 and taught high school math and science on the U.S. Virgin Islands for two years. Moving to New York in 1967, he taught at New York University for several years, eventually becoming an assistant professor of English in 1970. Publishing his first poetry book in 1970, Perimeters, Levendosky became poet-in-residence at Georgia Southern College that year. He also was associate director of Project Radius for the Georgia Commission on the Arts in 1971 and 1972. Levendosky next moved to Wyoming to become poet-in-residence for the Wyoming Council on the Arts and director of the Poetry Programs of Wyoming. During this time, he continued to publish poetry collections, such as Words & Fonts (1975), Aspects of the Vertical (1978), and Distances (1980). In 1982, Levendosky accepted a job as arts editor, columnist, and editorial page editor for the Casper Star-Tribune, for which he became known for his editorials on free speech, conservation, and civil liberties; he also created the newspaper's First Amendment Web site—FACT—which earned him an American Library Association (ALA) award in 1995 and an Editor and Publisher award for best original feature for an online newspaper service in 1996. More poetry books were published in the early 1980s, including Wyoming Fragments (1981) and Nocturnes (1982), and in 1988 Levendosky was named poet laureate of Wyoming. His last poetry collections were Hands and Other Poems (1986) and Circle of Light (1995). In addition to the above honors, Levendosky was given the ALA's Intellectual Freedom Round Table's John Phillip Immroth Memorial Award and, in 1999, the Freedom to Read Foundation named him to its Roll of Honor.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, March 24, 2004.

Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO), March 19, 2004, p. B15.