Robert Panara, a pioneering teacher of deaf studies, will be recognized by the U.S. Postal Service on a two-ounce “Forever” stamp to be released April 11.
The stamp, on which Panara is signing the word “respect,” is also meant to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding in 1817 of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, the founding of which marked the beginning of formal education for deaf students in America, USPS said.
Panara, who died in 2014, never taught in Connecticut.
It will be the 16th stamp in the “Distinguished Americans” series, which launched in 2000. The series featured Connecticut abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe in 2007.
Panara taught English for two decades, beginning in 1948, at Gallaudet College (now University), in Washington, DC.
In 1967, he helped found the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) and became its first deaf faculty member. He taught English to both deaf and hearing students at NTID, part of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, for the next 20 years.
The price of the two-ounce, first-class stamp is 70 cents.
