Charles Sydnor, historian who led Virginia’s VPM network as president, dies at 82

Charles Wright Sydnor, Jr., a historian and Holocaust scholar who led the VPM network of public stations in central Virginia as president and CEO, died Nov. 28 in Abingdon, Va. He was 82.

Sydnor became chief executive of VPM in 1992, when the Richmond-based public television and radio network was called Central Virginia Educational Telecommunications Corporation. At that point in his academic career, Sydnor had published a book with Princeton University Press, produced public TV documentaries and served as president of Emory & Henry College, now Emory & Henry University. He had also worked with former Virginia Gov. Chuck Robb as a special assistant.

“Charlie was truly a larger-than-life figure whose remarkable career spanned multiple industries,” VPM CEO Jayme Swain said in a message to listeners and viewers. “He was a brilliant and captivating storyteller with an enormous heart. Public media was one of his deepest passions, and he cared profoundly about the community we serve.”

Among his achievements during 14 years as VPM president, Sydnor received an Edward R. Murrow Award for his role as EP on A Soldier’s Day: D-Day Remembered, a film that documented the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the World War II operation in Normandy.

After VPM, Sydnor became president and executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond. A remembrance published by the museum said Sydnor “dedicated his life to preserving truth, fostering understanding and educating future generations about one of the darkest chapters in human history.”

Sydnor was born Aug. 26, 1943, in Jefferson City, Tenn. His family moved to Richmond and Sandston, Va., by 1950, according to a family obituary published by Farris Funeral Services and Crematory.

He graduated from Emory & Henry College. Sydnor went to Vanderbilt University on a fellowship, earning a master’s degree and a doctorate in modern German Holocaust history.

Sydnor published Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death’s Head Division, 1933–1945 with Princeton University Press in 1977. (The book was revised in 1990.) In 1979 he received the American Historical Association’s James Harvey Robinson Prize, which recognizes “the most outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history in any field for public or educational purposes.”

Sydnor also applied his academic research as an expert witness for the Office of Special Investigations in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and testified in denaturalization cases brought against former SS concentration camp guards.

His academic career took him to Ohio State University and Longwood College, now Longwood University, in Farmville, Va., and he began working as a writer, researcher and producer of public television documentaries.

Sydnor served as president of Emory & Henry from 1984–91. An obituary published by the university said Sydnor led “unprecedented growth” of the college during his tenure. He increased its endowment, oversaw the renovation of numerous campus buildings and led the creation of a yearlong course in liberal arts for first-year students. Sydnor returned to Emory & Henry in 2006 to serve “as an ambassador and fundraising officer,” according to the university.

Near the end of his tenure as Emory & Henry president, Sydnor spoke at the 1990 convocation and challenged students to uphold ideals of leadership and self-sacrifice, according to his family’s obituary. “Be not afraid to make history and to change the world. You can and you must,” he said. “The hope that sustains the human spirit, through the darkest passages and the brightest days, is the simple belief that what is to come will always be better than that which now is.”

Funeral services will be held Dec. 14 in the Memorial Chapel on the Emory & Henry campus in Emory, Va. A reception will follow in the chapel’s Mason Fellowship Hall. A private interment will be held in the Holston Conference Cemetery at Emory.

Memorial gifts and flowers may be made to the Charles W. Sydnor, Jr. Endowed Scholarship at the university’s office of philanthropy and engagement.