High School of the Week- Springfield Southeast (Illinois)

Though he is actually an alumnus of The Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, we are featuring a photograph of President Barack Obama with our High School of the Week entry for Springfield Southest High School in Springfield, Ill., because the state capital of Illinois is effectively where Obama's political career began to flourish when he was a member of the state senate there some ten years ago.

We must profess that Illinois offered many potential choices for High School of the Week selection process: Actor Bruce Dern, who recently turned 76, is an alumnus of New Trier High School in Winnetka, Bill Murray graduated from the private Loyola Academy in Wilmette, the classic 1985 teen angst film "The Breakfast Club" was filmed at Maine North High School in Des Plaines and my cousin Brent Gokbudak went to Niles West High School in Skokie where his teammate on the gymnastics team was none other than future Olympian Bart Conner! (All of these schools are in suburbs of Chicago).

But we chose Springfield Southeast HS, a school with an enrollment of some 1,350 students according to Wikipedia, over all of them. The school nickname is The Spartans, and there are both boys and girls hockey teams at the school as well. Elbert Kern is the football coach for The Spartans. And Jason Wind is the school's principal.

Of course, even folks in Karachi, Pakistan, know that Seymour Skinner (his 'real name' is Armin Tamzarian according to Wikipedia) is the principal of the elementary school in the fictional Springfield on "The Simpsons." There is speculation that the Springfield in the cartoon series was based on Springfield, Mass., but that has never been verified.