When Paul McNulty visits South Hills Country Club in May, it won’t be to run on the golf course as he did almost 40 years ago when he was a member of the Baldwin High School cross-country team.
Instead, he will be among 11 alumni — including Utah Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, class of 1952 — who will be inducted into the district’s first Distinguished Highlander Alumni Hall of Fame.
Sen. Hatch is unable to attend the gala, but his acceptance will be shown on video during the event that evening, according to his press secretary, Matt Whitlock.
The gala is part of a series of year-long festivities to celebrate the Baldwin-Whitehall School District’s 75th anniversary.
The hall recognizes the personal and professional achievements of alumni and the list of inductees is a who’s who among Baldwin High School graduates. Alumni will be inducted every other year.
Mr. Hatch was student body president and played basketball and boxed at Baldwin High School. He also played the piano, organ and violin.
“I had friends who were quite different than me, so I discovered the value of finding common ground,” he said in a statement. “I learned from teachers who challenged me to expand my horizons and to seek opportunities to make a difference in the world around me.”
“I’m honored to accept a nomination into the Highlander Hall of Fame. This award is meaningful to me, not because of any success I’ve had since I left Baldwin High School, but for the transformative experiences I had in those halls. Experiences that laid the groundwork for anything positive I’ve done since,” Mr. Hatch said.
Mr. McNulty, class of 1976, is Grove City College’s new president. He spent more than 30 years working in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Department of Justice. As a U.S. attorney, he prosecuted terrorist cases following the 9/11 attacks.
He fondly remembers giving his commencement address during that bicentennial year and playing one of the leads in the high school’s first large-scale musical, “Brigadoon.’’
“There’s no doubt I developed a passion for history, law and public policy while I was a student at Baldwin. I came [to Grove City College] with a real interest in history and law and never wavered from that,” Mr. McNulty said.
Also among the inductees is Shawn K. Kelly, class of ’92, a biomedical engineer who was on the school’s wrestling, swim, cross-country and track teams.
“My AP physics class [with teacher David Spahr] was challenging but small in size. It gave me a feel for what it would be like to study engineering,” he said.
After spending 19 years in Boston at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he now is a research scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, developing new medical technologies. He moved back into the Baldwin-Whitehall School District three years ago.
The Distinguished Highlander Alumni Hall of Fame is a joint effort of the district and the Baldwin-Whitehall Educational Foundation.
“There are a lot of people with great experiences who graduated from Baldwin who didn’t have a way to connect back to the district,” said Tony Graham, president of the foundation.
A core group of foundation board members — with numerous suggestions from former and current administrators, board members and residents — had the difficult task of selecting this first class of inductees, he added.
The individuals represent a diverse set of achievements gained through simple hard work, explained superintendent Randal A. Lutz.
Another inductee, Dennis Yablonski, class of ’70 and president and CEO of The Allegheny Conference on Community Development, worked five days a week at a Kroger store while he took AP classes and participated on the wrestling team.
“I was very well-prepared academically for college,” said Mr. Yablonski, who attended the University of Cincinnati, studying industrial management. He also noted that the school’s large enrollment — about 3,000 in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades — eased his move to a large campus.
“People in Baldwin value the idea of service. Everyone in this group is straightforward. They are who they are, and they have given the best of what they have at the local, state and even national level,” Mr. Lutz said.
Mr. Lutz said that in the future, he plans to work with the staff to explore ways for some of the alumni, especially those who still live in the region, to come back to the district and share their expertise with students.
“Our long-range goal is to celebrate our alumni and have them connect with our curriculum, so they are not just names with a graduating year on display, to give students the idea of what it takes to be one of the greats at Baldwin-Whitehall,” he said.
The foundation, a nonprofit, was founded in 2009. Its goal is to support educational programs not funded by the district through grants and scholarship money. The gala event will be the group’s first major fundraiser.
“This means that while you celebrate the past 75 years in our district’s history, you have a unique opportunity to invest in our future, our students,” Mr. Graham said.
Former majorette Michelle Rogan-Finnemore, one of the inductees, said her fondest memory at Baldwin was an Earth and Space class taught by John Marklewicz. She graduated in 1981 and is a geologist, international law specialist and Antarctic researcher. She now works as executive head of Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programs in Christchurch, New Zealand.
"I am very humbled that someone thought to nominate me and grateful to the selection committee," she wrote in an email.
Others who will be inducted into the first Distinguished Highlander Alumni Hall of Fame are:
■ Alexander Bennett, class of 1960, former mayor of Baldwin Borough, police officer;
■ Kathleen Nord DePuy, class of 1959, member of Whitehall council and past president of Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs;
■ Edward R. Helbig Jr., class of 1969, educator and coach, Baldwin-Whitehall School District;
■ Gregory M. Kraus, class of 1993, FBI special agent and former U.S. Navy SEAL;
■ William M. Lambert, class of 1976, president and CEO of MSA Safety Inc.;
■ James F. Nowalk, class of 1970, mayor of Whitehall, president of Pennsylvania State Mayors Association and president of Baldwin-Whitehall Friends of the Theater Arts.
Laurie Bailey, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: April 10, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
