Evanston Township High School honored six esteemed individuals at its annual Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony with a senior assembly Monday morning and a reception and dinner later that evening.
ETHS has been celebrating the achievements, service and community engagement efforts of its alumni since 2003. This year six recipients received the prestigious honor. Dr. Kenneth Schaefle, Nichelle Campbell-Miller and Dr. Frank Ling attended the reception and dinner. Andrew Slavitt, class of 1984, was unable to attend, and Sanders “Sam” Hicks, class of 1940, and Dr. Elizabeth Hill, class of 1916, were honored posthumously.
Each year, the award winners are selected from ETHS’ alumni base. Nicole Jacob Marks, a member of the selection committee, said there were more than 60 nominations this year.
It was hard, Marks said, to narrow it down to six, adding that the committee went “back and forth on a number of things,” looking beyond personal and professional achievements.
“It’s more about what they’ve done to give back,” Marks said.
Marks, who’s been attending the ceremony for the past six years, said some of the recipients are “wowed” when they visit the school for the first time in years. They’re usually impressed, she added, by the accomplishments of current students.
“We’ve had people who’ve won a million awards say, ‘This is the coolest one,'” Marks said.
Medical care in Uganda
Schaefle, an associate professor of clinical medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, spends three to four months a year in Uganda providing medical care at an underfunded government hospital. That’s where he was when he got the Skype call from David Futransky, senior director of institutional advancement at the high school, letting him know he had won.
“I was really awed because of the power and the role Evanston High School had in my life and all of my classmates’,” Schaefle said. “We all speak of this high school with reverence. Almost all of us say that it was much more influential than our college experiences in terms of teaching us our study skills and shaping us as the students we were.”
When Schaefle was still a student at ETHS, he said the intensive workload and classes brought out the best in the students around him.
“I quickly saw that the smartest people were also the nicest people,” Schaefle said. “And they were generous with their time and their help.”
Schaefle said he has formed a lifelong bond with some of his peers and added that representing the class of ’86 as an award recipient is a huge honor and responsibility.
Working with at-risk youth
Campbell-Miller, class of 2011, is a school social worker in Terre Haute, Indiana, where she founded her school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance Club and serves as a mentor to students. She’s also been recognized as a leader in her community, dedicating her time to working with at-risk youth.
Campbell-Miller said she had missed several calls from Futransky before she finally answered but had to contain her excitement when she got the news.
“I wanted to scream, but I was in the middle of an airport, so there was a lot of people around,” she said with a laugh.
Campbell-Miller, who was raised by Jamaican immigrants, said winning the award means “a whole lot.”
“We are actually living the American dream,” she said. “I don’t know if any of my grandparents or aunts dreamed of us making it this far, so this is just as much their award as it is mine.”
Campbell-Miller said she is extremely honored and blessed to carry her family name in such a big way.
Renowned OB/GYN and professor
Ling, class of 1966, is a renowned OB/GYN and clinical professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He has published more than 145 medical papers and hundreds of abstracts over the years and serves on the medical committee for the Mid-South chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Ling talked about the moment he found out he had won the award.
“I was thinking, for lack of a better term, ‘That’s really cool,'” he said. “The fact that I’ve been away for so long, and yet, people have looked at my resume and what I’ve done during the years since ETHS and think it’s worthy of recognition, it just makes you feel good that you didn’t waste what you were given to begin with.”
Ling said he and his classmates were fortunate to have received the education they did from ETHS.
“The people who taught me, the opportunities, clubs and memberships and participation in all of the facilities, they went toward something that I used in a productive fashion,” he said.
Ling, who spent the day at the high school with Schaefle and Campbell-Miller, said he was impressed by the new, “forward-thinking” programs ETHS has to offer.
“The people leading the school are … looking many years ahead to prepare people and prepare groups of people and prepare facilities,” he said. “It takes vision, and I commend the school. I commend everybody who’s involved. I commend the foundation. Everybody seems to be pulling in the same direction.”
Sam Hicks was a great man, a leader and a good friend to my Father, former Evanston Firefighter Joseph Planos. They were both heroes saving many lives throughout their careers.