CHIDESTER, Otis Holden

Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ) - February 28, 1997 Deceased Name: Scout leader Chidester dead at 93 Otis Holden Chidester, longtime Boy Scout leader and Tucson High School teacher, died Saturday. He was 93. Chidester was born March 22, 1903, in Mineral City, Ohio. In 1912, he became involved in scouting. Gathering memorabilia from his own collection, he started the Otis H. Chidester Scout Museum of Southern Arizona, devoted to the history of scouting, at 1937 E. Blacklidge Drive. The memorabilia includes photographs, fliers, a 1916 scout uniform and artwork by famous scouts such as artist Norman Rockwell and behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner. Skinner and Chidester were charter members of the same Boy Scout troop formed in Susquehanna, Pa., on Sept. 8, 1912. They were lifelong friends. Chidester was head of Tucson High's graphic arts department, which he helped create in 1940, until 1968. He was a longtime printing adviser for the school's magazine, The Quarterly. He helped lay out and install school printing departments in schools in Arizona and other states. In 1955-56, he was president of the International Graphics Arts Educational Association. Chidester, who had a lung condition, moved from Pennsylvania to Tucson in 1934 on the advice of his physician. In a 1992 newspaper story, Chidester said he visited that doctor 25 years after moving to Tucson and the doctor said he didn't tell Chidester but he had given him only a 1,000-to-1 chance to live. ''Well, here it is 58 years later, and I guess I'll make it,'' Chidester said. He survived an accident at home in 1992 when he was trapped for 18 hours under a heavy dresser that he had inadvertently tipped over. Chidester, who had bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Arizona, was an amateur archaeologist. He frequently visited the Seri Indians, who lived on Tiburón Island off the mainland of Sonora, Mexico, in the Gulf of California, and gave lectures about his visits. In 1960, he was one of eight Arizonans to receive the Valley Forge Classroom Teachers' Medal awarded by the Freedom Foundation. In 1976 he received the Al Merito Award from the Arizona Historical Society for his unpaid work as editor of Smoke Signal, a western history magazine published by the Tucson Corral of the Westerners. Survivors include Carolyn Azcona of Tucson, a cousin. Funeral services will be held at 7 p.m. March 5 at Catalina United Methodist Church.