Chuck Olynyk

My name is Chuck Olynyk. I’m a reenactor, exploring history by living it. For many reenactors, Living History is a hobby. This isn’t just a hobby for me: it was my livelihood. As a teacher in inner city public schools, I used living history for 36 years to hook my students, who often dealt with obstacles to learning from a textbook alone. Some hundred days out of the academic year, I’d stand before my students in period-appropriate garb (or as close as I could manage), and tell the tales of these times, places and people.
Why is history such a passion? My father, a Ukrainian immigrant, told me that not everyone’s history gets written and I should find it. Then, when the great debate about Padre Serra statues came up, I realized there was a lot of California history being lost. This is an attempt to document it, as a reenactor, before we lose it, to stop at those landmark plaques beside a road and ask, "What happened here?"
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