Four named to Hall of Fame

3/22/2006

Four graduates of Sylvania schools have been inducted into the district s Hall of Fame of its academic excellence foundations.

They join about 65 members who have been named to the Hall of Fame at earlier dinner recognitions.

Peter Kendall said he left the former Burnham High School in 1954 without a specific career goal but with a love of English and history nurtured at the school. After leaving the University of Cincinnati with degrees in those two fields of study he said someone suggested I could probably get a job selling shoes. Those broad interests, however, led him to the journalism school at the University of Illinois and eventually to working during what he termed the highlight of television journalism.

He s not pleased with the limited amount of time now given to news on network television, particularly compared to the time he worked for CBS when the anchor was Walter Cronkite and the network supported numerous bureaus around the world.

He began in television news in Indianapolis, but soon joined CBS and from 1972 to 1982 worked in London, most of the time as bureau chief in charge of

European and Middle East bureaus. Mr. Kendall held a number of other high-level positions in TV news and in 1990 he began 11 years as a producer for CNN.

On his visit here, he said he was amazed to learn that there are nearly 8,000 students in the Sylvania system.

That s nearly three times the number of people in this little village that I remember, he said.

That smaller size created the advantage that teachers usually lived near all of the families and knew their students from nearly the time they were born.

Also inducted is Paul Travis, a 1964 graduate of Northview High School, who is now a Columbus attorney specializing in workers compensation law.

In addition to his professional accomplishment, Mr. Travis holds numerous titles in weightlifting.

Among many awards is a bronze medal from the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival in Colorado Springs in 1978 to a gold medal from the 2004 Pan Am Masters tournament in Puerto Rico.

He said his interest in weight training began when he was in high school and a coach began to stress its importance in his track and field events.

He also is an accomplished chess player.

When in high school he played U.S. chess champion Samuel Reshevsky to a draw. Today he spends time as a mentor and chess coach at a local school.

Frank Michota, a 1985 graduate of Southview, was a member of the school s tennis team that year that won the state championship.

He went on to Ohio State University, which he left with a doctor of medicine degree. He then went to the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for more training and has been there in many capacities since then.

He has been instrumental in the development of a specialty in which doctors confine their work to the overall care of hospitalized patients.

He also specializes in the treatment of deep-vein thrombosis and has written numerous articles and been interviewed on network television about the condition.

Jacqueline Hughes said she was encouraged to explore her creative interests while she was a student at Southview High School, from which she graduated in 1990.

Ms. Hughes said she has always loved clothes and art and the two went together in a degree in fashion design earned at Kent State University.

It then was off to New York City, with a little intern job, she said.

Her ability has led to the position of a design director for the LOFT division of Ann Taylor women s clothing.

Not only does she get to do the kind of work she has sought, but she regularly travels to Asia and Europe, inspecting yarns and fabrics at the site of their manufacture and identifying fashion trends that might lend themselves to being customized for the American market.

At least one of the European trips is to purchase clothes.

They pay me to go shopping for clothes in Europe, she said, laughing with a bit of amazement.