Today, as a farewell to the High School of the Week series, I am profiling Glenvar High School in Salem, Va., which is my own alma mater!
We are also profiling Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, DC, since we realize that by mentioning high schools from all 50 states, we snubbed our very own nation's capital!
The actual school I mentioned the first time around for Virginia was William Byrd High School in Vinton, which like Glenvar is a Roanoke County school.
As for Woodrow Wilson High School, their famous alumni include Warren Buffet and former Washington DC mayor Adrian Fenty (just lost reelection in November; he graduated in 1988 the same year as me!).
But, for Glenvar High School, aka Highlander High, which had 637 students in 2009, well there aren't many famous alumni. In fact, I was probably the first person of Middle Eastern heritage to graduate until my little sister did in 1992. I suspect no other Turkish-Americans or Arab-Americans have joined us which is certainly not the case at Woodrow Wilson HS which has students from 85 different countries!
However, there is Rick Huddle, a story-teller/entertainer in Portland, Ore., who graduated from GHS in 1987. In fact, we were on the same soccer team in which Rick actually got to play while I sat on the misreable bench.
Huddle has been acclaimed by "The Oregonian" for his 'rubbery face and expressive body language.' And, on his web site rickhuddle.com, the entertainer has this quip from author Marc Acito: "Rick Huddle is the Hoover vacuum of storytellers- he just sucks you right in."
As for my school, the current GHS principal is Joe Hafey. The Wikipedia page for GHS cites Coach Dickie Myers, who taught me earth science in the ninth grade, for his 30 years of teaching and coaching. Among the sports that Myers coached were wrestling, cross country and track.
As for more recent alumni, I heard that Evan DeHart has returned home from a tour of duty (in presumably Afghanistan) with the Marines. We are glad he is back, even if Salem, Va., is only just slightly more hip and happening than Kandahar province. Well, we do have a Starbucks now, oh, I forgot---there are two of them in fact!
SIDEBAR: NPR tweeted today that the community of Hacker Valley, WVa, zip code 2622, is reeling from the loss of their post office as the next closest one is in the town of Diana, which makes for a 40-minute round trip!
SIDEBAR TWO: As I was driving past the Greyhound bus station in Burlington, NC, a few weeks ago, I thought about what would be the longest continental bu strip one could take from there. And, we found out that if the city's mayor Ronnie K. Hall wanted to visit his counterpart Doug Issacson of North Pole, Alaska (whom we profiled a long time ago), it would take 74 hours and four minutes for a total of 4,326.22 miles. Much of the trip would go through western Canada, including Saskatoon and Edmonton. The same trek is a mere 72 hours and 30 minutes from my hometown of Salem, Va.
SIDEBAR THREE: The main Twitter trending words today are Roll Tide, Thanksgiving Dinner, Gobble Gobble, Friday Shopping, Wal-Mart and Leftovers. We hope the mere mention of these words inflates our hit total for today!
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