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4 WASD alumni honored with distinguished award

MARK NANCE/Sun-Gazette Nasir Adair, 11, son of Kim Adair of South Williamsport, left, and E'kim Sap[p, 10, son of Jan and Tyron Sapp of Loyalsock Township have author Rodney Walker autograph their books during the Williamsport Area School District Education Foundation's Donor and Alumni Appreciation Event at the Trade and Transit Center II Thursday. Walker is the author of "A New Day One: trauma, Grace, and a Young Man's Journey from Foster Care to Yale

Four alumni of the Williamsport Area School District were honored by the district’s education foundation with the 2018 Distinguished Alumni awards at an event Thursday night at the Trade and Transit Center II.

Over a hundred people were on hand as Michael D. Stratton, Greg Walker, Dr. Harold I. Hurwitz and Philip M. Thomas Sr. were officially inducted into the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. Since the program began in 2012, 16 graduates, including this year’s honorees, have received the awards. Hurwitz was unable to attend in person and Thomas accepted by video.

Stratton graduated from the district in 2007 and now works at Artemis Real Estate Partners, in Washington, D.C. He is also involved in civic and community service.

Accepting the award, Stratton shared the influence his mother had on the direction his life has taken.

“If anyone asks where I got my drive, it’s from her without question,” he said.

He also commented on his time at the city high school.

“Williamsport Area High School was my opportunity. While there I participated in over a dozen student organizations allowing me to realize what interested me and what didn’t. I attended school with peers from varied backgrounds, allowing me to appreciate and empathize with different perspectives,” he said.

Now involved in education as the Midwestern regional vice president at The College Board in Chicago, a position he’s held since 2012, Walker graduated in 1987 and now resides in Independence, Ohio.

Admitting that not all of his memories of his school years were always pleasant, he noted there were also some really great people that balanced that out.

“What I would encourage you to do as a foundation — you care. I’ve devoted my life to education — I care. But I challenge you to make sure that everyone cares,” he said.

He told the group how his first grade teacher locked him in a closet and he was in sixth grade before he read a book from cover to cover.

“We know that things that happen to kids last a long time,” he said, “but I had a counter-balance through those things. I met teachers along the way who encouraged me, who told me I could do anything, I could be anything that I wanted to be.”

Thomas, who graduated in 1961, retired from the school district in 2002 after having served as a head principal until 2000 when he became an administrative consultant for the district.

Because of a recent surgery he was unable to attend the event in person, but he joked how he was the only award recipient who graduated from Williamsport High School before the word area was added to the name.

Hurwitz graduated in 1980 and now serves as the prinicpal medical director of cancer immunotherapy at Genentech, in San Francisco.

Featured speaker for the night was Rodney Walker, author and inspirational speaker and at-risk youth advocate. Walker shared his story of how one person who believed in him played a role in helping him overcome the adversities of growing up in Chicago’s south side.

“From the age of five to 17 I had been in 12 different foster homes,” he said.

He told how he had both bad and good experiences during those years, but the traumatic experience he had in Chicago at that time really trumped psychologically, emotionally and spiritually the gravity of the experiences of his childhood. He ultimately ran away from his foster home and became homeless, experiencing what he called “all of the horrors of Chicago” in many different ways.

“I also had a chance to reflect on all the decisions that I had made up to that point to land in the situation I was in,” he said. “A lot of my life early on was a discovery that never came to a conclusion and that haunted me for a long time,” he admitted.

“All I ever wanted was a family,” he said. “I can remember even at the breaking point I realized that my life may never be fixed, but what I can do is create something new so that what was broken could never be allowed to happen ever again.”

Walker was homeless and going into his senior year of high school when he met an individual who refused to see him fail. The teacher became his mentor, which ultimately changed the direction of his life. Today, Walker, who is now 28, holds a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College, a master’s degree from Yale University and earned a master’s in education from Harvard University.

He has written a memoir, “A New Day One: Trauma, Grace and a Young Man’s Journey from Foster Care to Yale.”

The district’s Education Foundation donated $295,000 to the city school district last year. It supported academic programming, the arts, athletics and capital improvement projects.

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