Once a wildcat, always a wildcat
By Kalea Hall
STRUTHERS
Students in the Struthers High School 2015 graduating class once again showed their true nature.
On Sunday, they shared their graduation ceremony with veteran Wildcats who never received a diploma.
Seven veterans received honorary diplomas decades after they were supposed to because they either had to leave high school to work to provide for their families or they left to go into the service.
“This class is all about kindness, generosity, appreciation and service,” said Joseph Nohra Jr., Struthers superintendent. “These graduates are kind people.”
Class President Noah Linnen reminded his more than 140 graduating class members of the kind acts they made in their time together.
The class gathered to support Samson Macklen’s family while his late brother, Dean Macklen, battled multiple cancers.
“We did this to show [the Macklens] that we were there for them,” Linnen said.
Recently, the class pushed to make certain that classmate Sarah Williams was elected prom queen. Williams, who battles a rare genetic disorder affecting the central nervous system, uses a wheelchair.
“[Sarah’s] winning prom queen was a way for us to show her we were there,” Linnen said.
On Sunday, the class once again was there to cheer on Williams with a standing ovation as she received her diploma. Williams never stopped smiling as the Struthers Field House erupted in cheers for her, for the Class of 2015 and for Struthers.
“The success of being a Wildcat is something I will hold dear,” Linnen said. “Remember where you came from. You will never forget to stay hungry and humble ... if you remember who you are and where you came from.”
The veterans who received diplomas decades after their actual graduation ceremonies never forgot their Wildcat roots.
Rosemarie Yuhas was able to watch her husband, Eugene, accept his diploma at age 86. This was after she watched him work tirelessly to raise four children. And it is after she saw his dedication for veterans lead to the creation of a Veterans’ Memorial outside Struthers High.
“I am just real proud of him,” Rosemarie said.
Eugene would have graduated either in 1947 or 1948, but instead, he left school to make money for his family. He went on to serve in the Army from 1950 until 1952. When he came back, he started to work again.
“I was working two jobs to raise four kids,” he said.
He never had the chance to get his diploma until Sunday when he joined younger graduates in listening to the speeches of the class president and valedictorians Rachel Leonard and Jalen Trimacco, choir anthems, band performances and in watching the presentation of diplomas.
His message to the young graduates: “Acknowledge the fact that you need to keep going and not stop.”
William C. Pompeii’s daughter, Rosalie Nemeth, watched her two grandchildren Brett and Christian Nemeth receive their diplomas, and then she accepted her late father’s diploma with her siblings.
Pompeii served in the Army from 1943 to 1946 after he left school to work and provide for his family.
“[My father] would be so proud to see them get their education,” Rosalie said of her grandchildren. “I am just so happy.”
Some 60 years after the year he was supposed to be a SHS graduate, Ray P. Ornelas received his diploma.
“I was one credit shy of a diploma,” Ornelas said.
He left school June 8, 1951, and by June 25, he was a Marine. When he got out of the military in 1954, he realized he needed and wanted to get his general education diploma or GED, but it just never happened. He worked for local steel mills and was able to provide for his family.
“I dreamed of getting a diploma,” he said.
So, when he got the call that he would receive a diploma at this year’s ceremony, he was ecstatic.
Members of the Struthers Fallen Soldiers Project helped the Struthers Board of Education find Struthers veterans in need of a diploma.
John Gbur also received a diploma, as well as Rinaldo Carrabbia and the late Roy Blisard and George Kutlesa.
They “earned those diplomas through blood, sweat and tears,” Nohra said.
As the saying goes: Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat.