Chip_Mosher

Chip Mosher

Chip Mosher

American writer (1947–2021)

Charles Jon "Chip" Mosher[1] (June 23, 1947 – November 15, 2021) was an educator, poet, author and newspaper columnist who wrote social commentary about education and history, as well as satirical fiction.

Quick Facts Born, Died ...

Early life and education

Mosher, who grew up in Chillicothe in Southern Ohio, spent the 10th grade at Staunton Military Academy, and then transferred to Salem High School, where he wrote for the school newspaper, graduating in 1965.[2]

In 1969, Mosher received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. He attended a master's program at Duke Divinity School, where he played basketball and acted in the Duke Players,[3] from 1969 to 1972.[4] He earned a master's in education from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1998.[citation needed]

Career

Mosher was a volunteer teacher in Thessaloniki, Greece from 1972 to 1974.[5] In 1988, he began teaching history at a high-risk school within the Clark County School District in Las Vegas.[6]

Beginning in 2005, he wrote a weekly column titled "Socrates in Sodom"[7] for Las Vegas CityLife,[8] an alternative newsweekly, until the paper folded in 2014.[9] The tag line at the end of his column stated that he was "a simple classroom teacher."[10] He also wrote a monthly almanac for CityLife.[11] In 2018, he began writing an almanac for Desert Companion magazine. The column, titled "Random Access Memory,"[12] also appears on Nevada Public Radio's website, which publishes the monthly magazine.[13]

As a teacher who wrote about the school district he worked for, the opinions in his column caused controversy.[14][15][16] As a result, he was regularly interviewed about education issues.[17][18] In the early 2000s, Mosher predicted cheating would occur on a national scale with the corporate reform of education. "It’s no longer about the students or teachers. It’s all about money,” the Las Vegas Weekly quoted him as saying after a Washington, D.C. cheating scandal and another one in Nevada in 2014.[6]

Bibliography

Mosher's chapter “Memoir of a Modern Woman in the Modern World” was included in the book The Anarchy of Memories: Short Fiction Featuring Las Vegas Icons, which was released by Huntington Press in October 2015. The book was part of a Las Vegas Writes project, a compilation of short fiction featured at the annual Vegas Valley Book Festival (since renamed the Las Vegas Book Festival).[19][20]

Mosher's contribution to the 2010 fictional book Dead Neon: Tales of Near-future Las Vegas, published by the University of Nevada Press,[8] was described by Publishers Weekly as "a parody of Harlan Ellison in C.J. Mosher's "A Girl and Her Cat... ."[21]

In 2005, he released a CD titled America, Please!, which includes 26 poems and one sci-fi short story.[22]

Awards

  • 2011 Nobel Educator of Distinction Award for "excellence in teaching" from the National Society of High School Scholars.[23]
  • 2009 3rd-place award in the Nevada Press Association's “Better Newspaper Contest" for a CityLife column.[24]
  • 2008 1st-place journalism award from the Nevada Press Association for his CityLife education column.[25]
  • In 2004 Honorable Mention for a 2005 Nevada Arts Council fellowship.[26]

References

  1. [1]
    "Charles Jon Mosher from Las Vegas, Nevada | VoterRecords.com". voterrecords.com.
  2. [2]
    "1965 Yearbook Salem Senior High School - Salem Public Library (pg 34)" (PDF).
  3. [3]
    "Vol. 66, No. 125". The Duke Chronicle. April 26, 1971.
  4. [4]
    "Windsor now stands 6-1 (pg 11)" (PDF). The Chronicle: Duke's Daily Newspaper. 1970-12-15.
  5. [5]
    "Chip Mosher: A backward-forward glance". Las Vegas CityLife. 2013-03-28. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  6. [6]
    Miller, Ken (April 23, 2014). "Was Vegas' elementary school cheating an inevitable scandal?". Las Vegas Weekly.
  7. [7]
    "Remembering 2 Great Las Vegas Writers". City Cast Las Vegas.
  8. [8]
    Pierce, Todd James; Keene, Jarret; et al. (9 April 2019). Dead Neon: Tales of Near-future Las Vegas. University of Nevada Press. ISBN 9780874178289 – via Google Books.
  9. [9]
    Dickensheets, Scott (January 21, 2014). "CityLife: Chronicle of a death foretold". Nevada Public Radio.
  10. [10]
    Stutz, Howard (10 November 2008). "Reporters' Notebook". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
  11. [11]
    Mosher, Chip (2012-07-16). "Chip Mosher's July Almanac". Las Vegas CityLife. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  12. [12]
    "Random Access Memory". Nevada Public Radio.
  13. [13]
    Frederick, Sherman (22 March 2010). "KNPR, where art thou?". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
  14. [14]
    Gray, Karen (2010-10-28). "The CCSD machine". Nevada Journal. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  15. [15]
    "The National Right to Work Committee® | 'The Teachers' Union Just Keeps Doing the Limbo From Year to Year to See How Much Lower It Can Go . . .'". Nrtwc.org. 2013-02-04. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  16. [16]
    "Union "Benefits Review" Requires Birth Certificates, Tax Returns – Intercepts".
  17. [17]
    "Is the Clark County School District a "political machine"? | Nevada News and Views". Archived from the original on March 31, 2014.
  18. [18]
    "Las Vegas News - Breaking News & Headlines". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
  19. [19]
    "Las Vegas Book Festival offers menu of words and ideas". October 17, 2019.
  20. [20]
    Meurer, Ginger (October 9, 2015). "Literary Las Vegas: Las Vegas Writes". Las Vegas Review-Journal.
  21. [21]
    "Fiction Book Review: Dead Neon: Tales of Near-Future Las Vegas by Edited by Todd James Pierce and Jarret Keene, Univ. of Nevada, $20 paper (184p) ISBN 978-0-87417-828-9". Publishers Weekly.
  22. [22]
    "Humphrey Bogart Smoking Video, Humphrey Bogart Smoking Clip". funny-video-online.com.
  23. [23]
    "Educators of Distinction - National Society of High School Scholars". Archived from the original on July 8, 2013.
  24. [24]
    "Nevada Press Association awards presented". San Diego Union-Tribune. 20 September 2009.
  25. [25]
    "2008 Nevada Press Association Better Newspaper Contest winners - Las Vegas Sun News". Las Vegas Sun. 29 September 2008. Retrieved 2013-04-14.
  26. [26]
    "Nevada Arts Council, "Artist Fellowships Awarded," Summer 2004" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-03-24. Retrieved 2013-04-27.
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