Stop By West High Alumni Tent at Friday, June 20 at Downtown Alive

The West Aurora High School Alumni Association will host a hospitality tent at Downtown Alive this Friday, June 20.

Alumnus and videographer Mike Meyer will be there to record favorite “East-West Rivalry” memories for an upcoming documentary.

Golf for Education” Outing to Benefit West Schools

Come join in the fun with School District 129 supporters at Bliss Creek Golf Course in Sugar Grove. The shotgun scramble event will begin at 1 p.m. Dinner and the awards ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. The total cost is $100 per golfer. A registration form is attached to this email.

The proceeds from this event will help fund scholarships for graduating seniors, enhancements for all district schools, and educational program grants for teachers.

The Alumni Association and The Foundation for West Aurora Schools are co-hosting the event. The groups are seeking sponsors for the golf outing. Sponsors will be recognized by more 140 school staff, teachers, administrators, alumni, and District 129 community supporters.

For more information, contact Stan Rayford ’91 at 630-853-4596 or Cindi Hamilton ’64 at 630-897-6785 or email foundationalumni@sd129.org.

West High Alumni Group Awards $2,000 Scholarships

The West Aurora High School Alumni Association awarded two $2,000 scholarships Monday to graduating seniors Kathryn Brauch and Sean Walgrave.

The two students received their scholarships from alumni president Barry Butler during Senior Honors Night at West High.

Brauch will study Media Services at North Central College and Walgrave will study Kinesiology at the University of Illinois.

Both students met the scholarship criteria, which includes a top 20 percent class ranking and involvement in multiple activities.

Brauch played in the marching band and pep band and acted in and directed theatrical productions. She also was the physics representative for West High in the WYSE academic challenge. In her senior year, she was a member of the Scholastic Bowl Team. Brauch also has served as a camp aide in Girl Scouts, a student assistant, a Student Ambassador, a National Honor Society member and a sound and media technician at her church. Brauch would like to become a video editor in the Christian film industry one day.

Walgrave also was involved in Student Ambassadors. He has traveled through his church to help communities in need by rebuilding and remodeling houses, helping in day care centers and other activities. Walgrave is considering joining the Navy and hopes for a career in physical therapy or chiropractic one day.

The Alumni Scholarship Fund has been established within the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley to provide graduating West Aurora High School seniors with financial support to continue their education at two-year or four-year colleges or universities.

Tax deductible contributions can be made to the Alumni Scholarship Fund of WAHS, care of the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley, 111 West Downer Place, Suite 312,  Aurora, Ill. 60506

West Aurora High School Alumni Association President Barry Butler

Kathryn Brauch

Sean Walgrave

Material Sought for East/West Rivalry Documentary

The Aurora Historical Society is seeking old film, video, photographs, news clippings or other material of athletic contests between East and West Aurora High Schools.

The material would be for possible use in a one-hour documentary DVD/TV show, with any revenue from sales going to the schools and the society.

Individuals can lend or donate East/West rivalry material to the Aurora Historical Society, 20 E. Downer, Aurora, Ill. 60506. The society will make copies of borrowed material and return the originals.

For more information or to learn how to make a tax-deductible contribution to the project, contact Historical Society Director John Jaros at 630-906-0650 or jjaros@aurorahistory.net.

Excerpts from a recent Beacon News article:

April 3, 2008

By HEATHER GILLERS hgillers@scn1.com

AURORA -- When John Jaros started work at the Aurora Historical Society more than 20 years ago, a woman called with a question about his own Aurora history: Was Jaros an East Sider or a West Sider?

"The whole East-West (rivalry) really permeated things," said Jaros, who is now executive director of the Historical Society (and an East Sider). "It used to break out into fisticuffs."

Capturing the history of that rivalry on video is the goal of a partnership between the Historical Society and alumni from East Aurora and West Aurora high schools. . .

. . . Competition since 1893

West Aurora School Board Member Neal Ormond, who has broadcast the shots, punts and passes of three generations of East High Tomcats and West High Blackhawks, said the rivalry dates back to when Aurora was divided into two separate villages split by the Fox River.

"The fact that the city fathers chose to form one city didn't change the opinions," he said. "You still had some strong feelings about where people lived."

Ormond, a 1958 West High graduate who helped hatch the documentary project, first explored the East-West rivalry in a program last year at the Aurora Historical Society.

He learned that the athletic competition started with an 1893 football game between the two high schools, set up as a practice for a game between East Aurora and Elgin students. East Aurora High School won, the Elgin game was canceled and a 115-year rivalry was born.

Since that time, West leads East overall in both basketball and football, according to statistics compiled (without bias, of course) by Ormond.

In basketball, West has won 125 games and East 86.

In football, West has won 55 games and East 48, with 12 ties.

West High Alumni Elect 2007-08 Officers

The West Aurora High School Alumni Association elected its 2007-08 officers at its Oct. 5 all-class reunion in West High’s stadium.

Barry Butler ’76 was elected president and Joanne (Miller) Cox ’61, secretary/treasurer. Elected vice presidents are: Lyle Rolfe ’57, publicity; Stan Rayford '91, membership and special events, and Donna (Floit) Oleson '61, reunion support.

Also elected to the alumni board are Cindi Hamilton ‘64, representing the Foundation for West Aurora Schools; Laura Hunger ’77, Blackhawk Sports Boosters; Janie (Peters) Lynn ’60, West High; Neal Ormond, ’58, school board; West Principal Dan Bridges, and Mike Chapin, alumni relations director.

Board terms begin Nov. 3, the date of the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Honor banquet and induction ceremony at West High. The banquet begins at 5:30 p.m. Contact Cindi Hamilton ’64 at 630-301-5033 or chamilton@sd129.org to order tickets.

For information on alumni association and the Nov. 3 Hall of Honor induction and sponsorship opportunities, contact Chapin at 630-301-5044 or mchapin@sd1229.org.

The West Aurora Blackhawk Sports Boosters will hold an on-line auction beginning Dec. 14 for 25 pieces of the high school’s original gym floor.

With the marketing slogan, “Own a Piece of Hard Court History,
54 Years of Memories,” the Boosters hope to raise funds for further renovation of the gym. The school district replaced the floor this past summer. Targeted areas for the auction proceeds include lighting, the sound system, scorers’ tables, banners and scoreboards.

The floor pieces, including center court, can be viewed at www.sd129.org/d129store. Minimum opening bids vary from $250 to $5,000 depending on the piece. The auction will run through Jan. 20.

The Sports Boosters are conducting this auction with the permission of the School Dist. 129 Board of Education. The Boosters is a volunteer organization that has been supporting Dist. 129 athletic programs for the past 35 years. For more information on Booster activities and membership, visit www.sd129.org/boosters/.

West High To Induct 6 Alumni Into Hall of Honor Nov. 3

Six West Aurora High School graduates will be inducted on Nov. 3 into the school’s Distinguished Alumni Hall of Honor.

Selected by an alumni association committee from dozens of nominations are:

• H. Ashley Barber '29, an inventor of road building and materials-handling equipment used throughout the world;
  
• Kathleen (Forsell) Caldwell '79, a research chemist with the National Center for Environmental Health who tackles diverse health issues, including the causes of preventable brain damage in children;
• George F. Everitt '61, a research chemist with 3M Corporation who developed heat-resistant ceramic fibers that today form the tiles on the space shuttle;
• Dr. R. Lawrence Hatchett '77 a national leader in the field of urinary medicine;
• Edward Ochsenschlager '50, an educator and researcher who made major contributions to the disciplines of cultural anthropology and archaeology; and
• Dr. Jacqueline Pongracic '79, whose noteworthy medical practice at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago and academic research at Northwestern University is aimed at ending the suffering of children from allergies and asthma.

The six will be honored at a banquet and induction ceremony beginning at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 3 at West Aurora High School, 1201 W. New York St., Aurora. Tickets are $35. Contact Cindi Hamilton ’64 at 630-301-5033 or chamilton@sd129.org to order tickets.  Advise her of your choice of dinner entrée (beef, chicken or vegetarian).

Student music groups will provide entertainment during the evening. Money raised from the banquet helps pay for two $2,000 student scholarships. Funding for the Hall, banquet and scholarships will be secured from private and corporate donors who support the alumni association.

The Hall of Honor inductees will have their plaques, along with their biographies, displayed in the foyer of the high school auditorium.

he Hall of Honor program has two goals, says Alumni Association President William Foote ’50. One is to honor distinguished alumni for their achievements. The other is to raise the self-expectations of West Aurora High School students with the realization that the alumni grew up in their neighborhoods and attended their school.

The Hall of Honor program began last year. The 10 alumni already in the Hall are: retired Army major general Max Baratz ‘52, former broadcast journalist John Drury ‘45, teacher and artist Ruth VanSickle Ford ’15, opera singer Eric Halfvarson ‘70, retired Navy admiral and current energy company executive H. William Habermeyer ’60, Harvard University associate professor Dr. Arthur Lage ’61, artist and illustrator Wendell Minor ’62, health care executive Paul Ormond ’67, meteorologist Tom Skilling ’70 and satellite television pioneer Robert Taggart ’61.

In the past three years, the alumni association has published a directory with information on 9,000 alumni, assisted with dozens of reunions and developed an online alumni directory of more than 1,000 graduates. For more information, call alumni director Mike Chapin at 630-301-5044, or e-mail him at mchapin@sd129.org or visit the Web site at www.sd129.org/alumni.

Bios of 2007 Honorees

H. Ashley Barber
Class of 1929
H. Ashley Barber (“Ash”) was an inventor of road building and materials handling equipment covered by 18 U.S. patents and a number of foreign patents. He was instrumental in applying the continuous principle of material handling and processing to a variety of applications. He played a major role in the development, testing and introduction of the first successful asphalt-paving machine and the continuous asphalt mixing plant that eventually were utilized all over the world. In addition, he is responsible for many of the innovations that are still used on virtually all asphalt pavers. After graduation from West High, where he was a student leader and football captain, Barber earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1933 from the University of Illinois and joined Barber-Greene Mfg. Co. He was elected president in 1954 and retired as chairman in 1976. Barber served on the boards of Copley Memorial Hospital, Aurora Redevelopment Commission and Northern Illinois Gas. He was a member of the Illinois Governor’s Advisory Council and the Governing Board of the Illinois Council on Economic Education.
                                                  
Barber also was elected to three other halls of fame: the University of Illinois Engineering School, the National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Construction Equipment Manufacturing Association.

Kathleen L. (Forsell) Caldwell
Class of 1979
As a research chemist, Kathleen L. Caldwell tackles diverse health issues from iodine deficiency and lead poisoning, leading causes of preventable brain damage in children to emergency response preparation for chemical/radiological terrorism. Caldwell, who earned a Ph.D in Chemistry from Emory University in 1998, is chief of the Inorganic Analytical Toxicology Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control. She also is the deputy chief of the Inorganic Radiation Analytical Toxicology Branch of the Division of Laboratory Science in the National Center for Environmental Health. Her duties include directing analyses for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and multiple human health studies. She directs research activities toward developing improved analytical methods for the detection of inorganic toxicants such as arsenic, mercury, lead and cadmium in humans. Caldwell has contributed to the development of many new methodologies aimed at detecting harmful elements in the blood and urine, including arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. Caldwell’s research team also develops methods to detect the levels of individual’s nutritional elements such as iodine, selenium, zinc and copper. Her work has helped insure future generations will be healthier generations.

Dr. George Everitt
Class of 1961
George Everitt worked at 3M for 23 years in the Ceramic Fibers Division on heat resistant ceramics.  These same materials were used to create the tiles that line the outside of the Space Shuttle.  Dr. Everitt’s work in ceramic fibers involved creating small batches of new materials in the laboratory, and then assisting with the process of scaling up operations.  He created a family of fiber sizings, allowing ceramic fibers to be more easily be used in heat resistant textiles such as firefighter clothing.  Dr. Everitt  also invented a new compound to stabilize ceramic fiber process fluid.  George was a devoted husband and father, and an active member of the Society for the Preservation and  Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America (S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A.). He served as Trustee for the United Methodist Church, and enjoyed model railroading.

R. Lawrence Hatchett
Class of 1977
Dr. R. Lawrence Hatchett, MD is a national leader in the field of urinary medicine. After a noteworthy career at Marquette University, where he was a student-body leader and four-year letterman on the varsity basketball team, Dr. Hatchett attended the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and later completed a fellowship through the Harvard University School of Medicine. He went into private practice in 1991 and became director of The Bladder Control Center of Tallahassee.  In 1996, Dr. Hatchett founded Incontinence Center Consultants, Inc., a national consulting firm designed to educate hospitals and physicians in the development of an incontinence niche through surgical training, market evaluation and practice marketing. Dr. Hatchett’s main interests lie in men’s health, benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH), erectile dysfunction, and kidney stone treatment and prevention.  As a leader in his field and has toured as a national speaker for a variety of health-related topics and consults on minimally invasive techniques to treat BPH. He founded Southern Illinois Urology in May of 2003 in Herrin, Ill.

Edward Ochsenschlager
Class of 1950
Edward L. Ochsenschlager, Professor Emeritus at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, chaired the Department of Classical Languages for 8 years, the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology for 7 years, served on the Committee for Administrative Policy for 15 years and founded and directed the CUNY Archaeological Research Institute.

He served as the Director or Assistant Director of excavations at Aphrodisias in Turkey, Thumuis, Mendes and Taposiris  Magna in Egypt, Sirmium in Yugoslavia, al-Hiba in Iraq, and Jujah in Yemen for, among others, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Institute of Fine Arts  of NYU,  the Brooklyn Museum, the Oriental Institute  of the University of Chicago and the  Detroit Museum of Art with the support of the National Endowment for the  Humanities, The National Science Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and many private foundations.  He has lectured extensively and given guest seminars at leading Universities both here and abroad.

Ochsenschlager has authored more than 40 books and articles, among them his 2004 book “Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden,” which has made a significant contribution to the discipline of ethnoarchaeology and recorded a way of life which no longer exists. His most recent work focuses on the relationship between classification, style and visual perception and a cognitive study of the link between the human mind and the origins of art.