© 2024 St. Louis Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Trebor Tichenor: He Kept Ragtime 's Syncopation Going

The obituary headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch read, Trebor Tichenor: The man with the backwards name. His father, Robert, gave him a gift of distinction by inverting his own name for his son. His mother gave him an equally lasting gift: ragtime music.

She played in Letty’s Collegiate Syncopators in the 1930s and required him to learn piano.

As the Post noted, Mr. Tichenor played for decades with the St. Louis Ragtimers. According to the Rocky Mountain Ragtime website, "Tichenor Trebor is one of the handful of elite who have received the Scott Joplin Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Scott Joplin Foundation in Sedalia, Mo.,, for extraordinary contributions to the field of ragtime."

Mr. Tichenor was also a member of the St. Louis Public Radio family, having hosted the weekly “Ragophile” show for 15 years starting in the early 1970s.

Visitation will be from  3-8 p.m. Feb. 27 at Kutis Affton Chapel, 10151 Gravois Rd., with the funeral there the next day at 11 a.m.

Donna Korando started work in journalism at SIU’s Daily Egyptian in 1968. In between Carbondale and St. Louis Public Radio, she taught high school in Manitowoc, Wis., and worked at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the copy editor and letters editor for the editorial page from 1973-77. As an editorial writer from 1977-87, she covered Illinois and city politics, education, agriculture, family issues and sub-Saharan Africa. When she was editor of the Commentary Page from 1987-2003, the page won several awards from the Association of Opinion Page Editors. From 2003-07, she headed the features copy desk.