Warren Italian fest includes effort to honor Western Reserve

By SEAN BARRON

news@vindy.com

WARREN

When it comes to well-established area summer festivals, it’s almost reflexive for many people to equate such gatherings with traditional foods, rides and games.

Members of a certain committee, however, hope one longtime fest will allow attendees to take home a few lasting memories.

“We want to create awareness and build a memorial to our high school for administrators, faculty and alumni who worked there and remember the school and rivalry with [Warren G.] Harding [High School],” said Mark Clawges, a founder of the Warren Western Reserve Memorial Committee.

Committee members are among those who are part of this weekend’s 32nd annual Italian-American Heritage Festival, which kicked off Thursday in Courthouse Square in downtown Warren.

The fest continues from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. today and Sunday.

The committee is trying to raise money to build a Warren Western Reserve High School Memorial Park at Elm Road and Atlantic Street to give those who were affiliated with the school a means by which to fondly remember their alma mater. The memorial will include an 18-foot bronze statue of a raider, which was the school’s mascot. The statue is estimated to cost $18,000, noted Clawges, a 1968 Western Reserve High graduate.

The school opened in fall 1966, and its last class graduated in 1990 before it consolidated into a middle school. The building on Loveless Avenue Southwest was razed in mid-2010.

Several committee members were at the fest Friday to sell numerous pieces of school memorabilia, including compact discs containing highlights of the school’s marching band throughout the 1980s, a variety of T-shirts, framed photographs and buttons. Also on display in their tent are renderings of the memorial that show a brick walkway leading to the bronze statue, along with several benches surrounding it.

“We started with absolutely nothing,” Clawges said, noting that the committee has raised about $15,000 so far.

The effort has garnered favorable reactions, including from the Warren Board of Education, said Dennis Freet, a committee member and 1973 Western Reserve grad.

“It’s a valuable part of Warren’s history,” Freet said, referring to the former school.

No date has been set to begin the memorial’s construction; the work relies heavily on donations, noted Sharleen Humes Johnson, the committee’s media coordinator.

It is hoped more alumni members will assist in the effort to get the project finished, Humes Johnson said.

For more information or to buy a brick, go to www.wwrraiders.com.

Also available to festivalgoers are numerous types of popular traditional foods such as Italian-sausage sandwiches, cavatelli and meatballs, ravioli, pizza, gyros, gnocchi, sweet and spicy calamari, french fries, deep-fried mushrooms and lemon shakes.

Other items for sale include everything from oil paintings and frames to print dresses and tops to balsamic and oil products to gutter guards. In addition, the festival is featuring basket raffles as well as cultural and heritage displays.

This weekend’s festivities also include plenty of entertainment from Mirella the Musician, Dominic Tocco, Uncle Floyd and Lights Out, along with a tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

The festival will conclude at 10:45 p.m. Sunday with a fireworks show.