SEBASTOPOL, CA, May 27, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present John Barnard Grant with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Mr. Grant celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
John Barnard Grant (J. B. Grant, Jack Grant) was born in Hartford, Conn., to Marion Hepburn Grant and Ellsworth Strong Grant, community activists and Connecticut historians of note. After two years at Yale College, he spent a year in Europe, playing music (guitar) and writing his first novel (lost in a fire). Then came four years in the U. S. Marine Corps, where, as a corporal E-4, he taught French, Spanish, and Japanese to enlisted men and officers. The year following, he earned his B. A. at the University of California, Berkeley.
As a college sophomore, Mr. Grant found summer employment at Camp Viking, on Cape Cod, Mass., a sailing camp for boys. The association continued for the next seven years, including 30-day leaves from the Marines and a final summer as head counselor, accompanied by his lovely bride, Ann Halterman, of Napa, Calif.
In 1965-66, the young couple lived on the coast of North Carolina. There, they joined a small group of pioneer surfers, learned to unicycle, and perfected skateboard tricks and techniques. Concurrently, Mr. Grant played guitar in a rock-'n'-roll band and completed the initial draft of Skateboarding.
For most of the next three years, the Grants were in central Florida, working for Green Valley, an experimental high school. Together, they taught athletics, ran camping trips, and took kids on sailing excursions aboard a refurbished 37-foot ketch. All along, Mr. Grant focused on finishing Halcyon Days, a "vaudeville revue" of the peacetime military, several of whose "skits" appeared in print at a later date.
In 1970, the Grants -- now with their three-year-old son Jason and newborn daughter Schuyler -- moved back to the Bay Area. While working for the California Outward Bound School, Mr. Grant learned to meditate and became interested in the various mind-broadening efforts just then emerging into the mainstream. The result was The Geocentric Experience (1972), a "whole soul catalogue" of articles and interviews, which attracted readers from as far away as Russia, and paid for the publication of Two Beastly Tales, a children's book written in conjunction with Katharine Houghton, Mr. Grant's sister.
Shortly after relocating in Sonoma County, Mr. Grant sold his skateboarding ms -- updated, with more photos -- to Celestial Arts. It was the first of the sport's how-to books, and led to a lengthy connection with Celestial/Ten Speed, for which he did editing and layout. Celestial published Soccer (1978, later reissued by Prentice Hall as Ins & Outs of Soccer); Companions in Spirit (1984, co-authored with Laeh Maggie Garfield); and The Unamericans in Paris (1988), a pseudo-memoir of busking on the streets of that city. 1988 was also the year that Sonoma State University produced Joan Rainbow, his play about Jeanne d'Arc and her numinous guides.
In the meantime, he was playing lots of soccer and coaching at area high schools, plus speed-skating with a regional club. Musically, having switched from guitar to keyboards (but loyal to ten-hole harmonica), he joined Musicians Union Local 6 and has performed in a variety of genres, from old-timey to bluegrass to blues, at venues ranging from Santa Rosa to Nova Scotia. He still hosts a monthly blues jam.
In 2003, Pleasant Bay Publishing released Viking, a retrospective of the sailing camp, which Mr. Grant co-wrote, edited, and supplied many photos for. Over the next decade, apart from magazine articles and a few stories, his work met with scant response; so, in 2012, he launched Talarion Publications. The list, thus far, includes a novel (Summer Squall on the Grand Strand, 2014); two collections of shorter fiction (Growing Concerns, 2015; and Two Ladies of the '80s, 2020); and Four Friends (2017), interviews-cum-photos of four naturist millennials. More to come.
Ann and Jack Grant recently celebrated their fifty-fifth anniversary. Their son Jason is an expert on green building and the forestry guru of the World Wildlife Fund. Their daughter Schuyler has acted on stage and in film ("Anne of Green Gables"), and is co-founder of Wanderlust Productions and the Kula Yoga project. Each has blessed their parents with three grandchildren.
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