Greetings from your high school alma mater!
We are pleased to launch our alumni newsletter with the hope of fostering a connection among graduates of the Shaker Schools. We want to provide you with updates on today's students, programs and initiatives, and reminisce about your time as a Shaker Red Raider. This publication is for you, our valued alum, so we will be asking you to share your thoughts and ideas as we build and grow our newsletter.
Thank you for sharing this newsletter with your Shaker friends!
Sincerely,
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Executive Director, Shaker Schools Foundation
Director of Alumni Relations
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Save the Date: Homecoming 2017
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Calling All Shaker Families and Alumni: Come to Homecoming 2017
2017 marks the 100th graduating class of Shaker Heights High School! In honor of this momentous milestone, all Shaker alumni, community members and current Shaker students and families are invited to take part in a special Homecoming Celebration on Friday, September 22 and Saturday, September 23, 2017. The festivities will include:
Raider Nation Night Out @ The Dealership
Friday, September 22 | 7-11 pm | The Dealership, 3558 Lee Road
Celebrate with music and festivities. Food, beer and wine will be available for purchase. A portion of the proceeds from the event will benefit the Shaker Schools Foundation.
Raider Nation Pre-Game Festival on the Oval
Saturday, September 23 | 11 am-1 pm | The Oval
Bring the entire family to enjoy activities for all ages with a carnival, music, food trucks and alumni gatherings.
Shaker Homecoming Football Game
Saturday, September 23 | Kick-off @ 1pm | Football Field
Come cheer on the Raider football team and marching band. All former band members, Raiderettes and cheerleaders are invited to join the fun as we honor our alums!
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| John Gresham and Neal Schwartz, Class of 1989 --- Reconnecting After 28 Years
From the Shaker Class of 1989, John Gresham and Neal Schwartz have been friends since their Mercer Elementary School days. Here, they are pictured as kids around the 4th grade year. They remember carefree days, playing with friends and "maybe" thinking girls were cute! Recently, they met up while Neal was visiting Phoenix. The stories, laughter and connection still remain.
Send us your Alumni Flashback photos and we'll include them in an upcoming newsletter.
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Join Us for Alumni Reunions and Events
Visit our
reunion page to learn more about upcoming reunions. Also, please be sure to
update your contact information so that we can keep you posted on each of our alumni events.
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My Shaker: Abdul Williams' Story
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Abdul Williams' Lottery Ticket Pays Off
Abdul Williams ('91) is doing what he loves for a living - writing. He has named credits in features such as
Lottery Ticket,
Surf's Up 2: Wavemania and, most recently, the TV series,
The New Edition Story. Before he attained this success, he graduated from Ohio University and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in restaurants and as an unpaid script reader. Eventually, he was employed by Carl Franklin, Denzel Washington's Company at Fox Studios, and SNL Studios, a movie division of Saturday Night Live. In 2003, he became a full-time writer.
Born in Cleveland, Williams moved with his family to California in the late 1970s, but returned to Ohio and began 7th grade at Woodbury in 1985.
Williams' Shaker Experience
In high school he became involved in Shaker's strong theater program. Since the age of 8, Williams has loved writing poetry and short stories and preferred reading and writing to any other activity. He recognizes that Shaker provides students interested in the arts many enriching opportunities, including New Stages. Williams recalls that his teacher, Dan Garrison, significantly edited his play, but that he convinced his teacher to leave everything intact. Later, as Abdul watched his play performed, he realized that Mr. Garrison was absolutely correct. To this day, he applies this lesson: "writing is all about rewriting."
Also instrumental to Williams' growth as a writer were James Thornton, founder of the Shaker Heights High School Theatre Arts Department, and English teacher Paul Springstubb. Williams believes that his Shaker education provided him with the freedom to explore and discuss ideas in a classroom that felt like a community. "This is learning for life. Shaker was enriching the lives of all its students."
What's next?
One of Williams' goals is to write and produce a story that takes place in Cleveland. We can't wait for him to come home to fulfill that dream!
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My Shaker is all about you!
Email us your Shaker story and we'll feature it in an upcoming newsletter.
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Terry Rozier ('12) Returned to the CLE with the Celtics
When he was in seventh grade, Boston Celtics point guard Terry Rozier told SHHS Basketball Coach Danny Young that he wanted to play for the Louisville Cardinals.
Five years later, that's exactly what he was doing. "Terry exemplifies setting and reaching goals," Young says. "He said he wanted to go to Louisville and he did, but that didn't come without a lot of hard work." Rozier recently returned to Cleveland to play the Cavaliers in NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
As a senior, Rozier led the Raiders to a 21-3 record and a regional semifinal appearance in the 2011-2012 season. It was Shaker's first visit to the regional semifinal in ten years. While at Shaker, Rozier was a three-year All-Lake Erie League player and he was rated 74th overall in the 2012 ESPNU Top 100 players. He was widely recruited by Division I schools.
"Terry had a good work ethic. He was always the first at practice and the last to leave," says Young.
A high volume scorer with a knack for finding open teammates, Rozier transitioned from an elite high school scorer to an important cog in Louisville's guard rotation as a freshman. He entered the NBA draft after his sophomore year and in 2015
was selected by the Boston Celtics as the 16th overall pick.
"Terry has always been a winner at Shaker, Louisville, and now with the Celtics," Young says. "I'm proud of the hard work and dedication he has put into getting himself to the NBA level. He has a bright future ahead!"
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Student Update: Service in Action
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Service Trip to Cambodia is
"Life Changing" for Students
This spring, a group of Shaker Heights High School students took a spring break service trip to Cambodia with Rustic Pathways, a local provider of travel and service experiences for students and educators. This was the second group of students from the high school to travel to Cambodia on a service trip. The students and two Shaker teachers, John Moore and Andrea Bradd, spent four days of service in the Prek Toal floating village building a home and repairing a school house before visiting the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in the city of Siem Reap.
Prek Toal residents are among Cambodia's poorest --- many live in homes that need major repairs. The team of Shaker students built a new home for a family of six. Previously, the family lived in a home where snakes entered through gaps in the floorboards and heavy rains leaked through a roof pockmarked with holes.
Staying overnight in Prek Toal enabled the group to experience a very different, and much simpler, way of living. "These students saw that this place couldn't have been more different than Shaker, but it can also be right," Mr. Moore said.
Seniors Kristi Seman and Dylan Freeman, were struck by the work ethic of the people of Prek Toal. "Our eyes were opened by what we saw in Cambodia," they shared. "Everyone worked regardless of their age." The students returned to Cleveland committed to raise $10,000 in support of the plans to build a new, safer school in Prek Toal. The new school will be built on stilts, making it more resilient during the rainy season.
En route to Cambodia, the group was encouraged to read "First They Killed my Father," a memoir by Shaker author Luong Ung that details her family's escape from the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. Visits in the villages and to the temples gave the students a first-hand look into the lives and the Buddhism of the Cambodia people.
The following students traveled with Mr. Moore and Ms. Bradd to Cambodia: Cora Albers, Zachary Brown, Schuyler Butze, Margaret Dant, Dylan Freeman, Aziz Hassasnali, Drew Hubbard, Kevin LaMonica, Gus Mahoney, William Raddock, Essence Reddick, Miriam Ricanti, Kristi Seman and Juliet Webster.
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The Foundation: Supporting the Schools and Students
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While some time may have passed since you were a Shaker student, many things remain the same. The Shaker experience continues to go far beyond the traditional subjects taught in conventional ways. Our schools continue to place a high value on the arts, interactive learning, multicultural experiences, global-mindedness and co-curricular activities.
The Shaker Schools Foundation serves an important role with a mission to provide resources to enrich the educational experiences of students. The Foundation is 35 years old and continues to grow and expand its impact with our students and schools.
Thanks to our generous donors, the Foundation recently was able to provide financial support for three of the students that traveled on the Cambodia service trip. Visit us
online to learn more about how your donation to the Foundation can help today's students. Please visit: or call us at 216 295-4325.
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Stay Connected with Shaker Alumni
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