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Past Honorees
M. Blouke Carus
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Past Honorees
M. Blouke Carus
Vice-Chairman
Carus Publishing
2006
Blouke Carus is Chairman of Carus Corporation, a
privately-held holding company, which owns Carus Chemical Company,
the world's leader in manufacturing and application of potassium
permanganate and a variety of manganese compounds. He is also Vice-Chairman
of Carus Publishing Company, which includes Open Court General Books
and 14 children's magazines: CRICKET, LADYBUG, SPIDER, BABYBUG,
and CICADA (mostly fiction), the non-fiction MUSE, ASK, and CLICK
(published in conjunction with THE SMITHSONIAN), and COBBLESTONE,
CALLIOPE, APPLESEEDS, FACES, ODYSSEY, and DIG.
Mr. Carus obtained a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech
in 1949, after having served from 1945-46 in the U.S. Navy. He continued
his studies in foreign languages and chemistry at Mexico City College,
the University of Freiburg in Germany, and the Sorbonne in Paris.
He joined Carus Chemical Company in 1951 as a Development Engineer
and helped modernize the manufacturing process for potassium permanganate.
He holds seven U.S. patents for his work during this period.
In 1962, with the family publishing house of Open Court, Mr. Carus
developed a reading and language arts program based on the work
of successful teachers. Over a 30-year period, this initiative led
to Open Court's Collection for Young Scholars, an effective, research
based K-6 reading and writing program. In 1970 he launched and supported
an elementary mathematics program called Real Math with a much broader
conception of mathematics than other programs at that time. This
program was field tested over a 12-year period. The textbook division
of Open Court Publishing Company was sold in 1996 to SRA/McGraw-Hill,
and the Open Court reading program is now being widely used throughout
the country, especially in California due to the Packard Foundation
project to train Open Court teachers in 25 districts. In the last
few years SRA/McGraw-Hill invested major resources in the latest
edition of Real Math now available for use in schools.
Because of his lifelong interest in education, Mr. Carus has served,
by Presidential appointment, as a member of the National Council
on Education Research, which established policy for the research
arm of the U.S. Department of Education. He also served as Chairman
of the Citizens' Committee to establish Illinois Valley Community
College. He was instrumental in establishing the International Baccalaureate
North America (IBNA) in 1973 and was Chairman of the IBNA until
June 1985; he was a Council member for International Baccalaureate
in Geneva, Switzerland from 1977 to 1994, and he is still assisting
the IBO as a member of the IBO Fund. Mr. Carus also initiated and
led the "Foundation Officers," which eventually developed
into The Philanthropy Roundtable.
In the last decade, as Chairman of the Illinois Manufacturers'
Association (IMA) Education Committee, and together with other business
associations, Mr. Carus has supported a variety of legislative initiatives
focusing on development of a strong accountability system in Illinois.
Due to Mr. Carus' long-term concern with school-to-work transition,
Governor Edgar appointed him to the Illinois Governor's Task Force
on School-to-Work Transition in 1994, and subsequently to the Illinois
Human Resources Investment Council in 1996. He was Chairman of the
Illinois Valley Education-to-Careers Partnership. Mr. Carus recently
joined the Illinois Business Roundtable, which is focusing its efforts
on the Illinois accountability system and strengthening teacher
training in the basics.
In 2001 Mr. Carus was named Man of the Year by the Manufacturing
Technology and Management Program of the Illinois Institute of Technology.
He received the national Vanguard Award from the Chemical Education
Foundation in 2002 and an honorary doctorate from Illinois Wesleyan
University in 2003. In 2004 Mr. Carus received the Distinguished
Alumnus Award from Caltech, and this coming November he and his
wife, Marianne Carus, have been designated for induction into the
Hall of Fame by the Association of Educational Publishers.
Mr. Carus is married to Marianne Carus, Editor-in-Chief of the Cricket
Magazine Group, and they have three children. His other interests
include travel, reading, chamber music, and foreign languages. He
and his wife reside in Peru, Illinois.
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