Marvin Chachere, teacher and jazz saxophonist, dies at 82
Times Picayune 07-02-2010
Submitted By NOVA

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Marvin Chachere, a retired teacher and University of California administrator who played
saxophone in his youth with a New Orleans jazz band, died June 17 in a nursing home in San
Pablo, Calif. He was 82.

Mr. Chachere, whose career included teaching stints at Xavier University and two colleges in
China, was born in Mobile, Ala. He moved to New Orleans in his youth to attend Xavier University
Preparatory School.

While in high school, Mr. Chachere played clarinet with Warren Bell Sr. in Dooky Chase's jazz
band.

He earned an undergraduate degree at St. Michael's College in Winooski Park, Vt., and a master's
degree at Boston College. He also did postgraduate work at the University of California,
Berkeley.

From 1954 to 1958, Mr. Chachere was in the Air Force. After his honorable discharge as a first
lieutenant, he moved to California.

Mr. Chachere taught mathematics at middle schools and high schools in the San Francisco area
until the early 1960s, when he went to University of California's Berkeley campus as a student
and then stayed as an administrator.

As associate dean of international studies at UC Berkeley Extension, the university's continuing
education division, he founded the Oxford/Berkeley Program, in which 100 students from each
school spend a year at the other institution.

After retiring from Berkeley in 1979, Mr. Chachere taught English in China, at Anhui Normal
University and Liaocheng Teachers' College.

Survivors include his wife, Lu Xin; five sons, Peter Chachere of Las Vegas, Philip and John
Francis Chachere, both of Oakland, Calif., and David and John Chachere, both of Berkeley; two
daughters, Claire and Elizabeth Chachere, both of Richmond, Calif.; three brothers, Ernest and
John Carmen Chachere, both of New Orleans, and John Chachere of Los Angeles; six sisters, Paula
Osborne of Las Vegas, Ursula Chachere of Seattle, Ann Marie Chachere of Los Angeles, Suzette
Blanc of Navarre, Fla., Bernadette Chachere of Mobile, Ala., and Marcella Cottrell of Missouri
City, Texas; four grandchildren; and a great-grandchild.

No memorial service will be held.

He donated his body to science.