Washington High School celebrates its 100th anniversary this year and a committee of alumni has been working hard to organize a centennial celebration Saturday, Oct. 22, from 7 until 11 p.m., at State Fair Expo Center.
Admission is $60 and tickets will not be available at the door. Registration deadline is Saturday, Oct. 1.
Proceeds will benefit The Scholarship Foundation, which has been awarding scholarships at the school for 30 years.
A tour of the school, which is now Washington High School of Information Technology, takes place the same day from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
"So far we have over 800 people coming, mostly from classes of '40s, '50s and '60s, when it was still a neighborhood school and there was a real sense of community. We'd like to reach more of the later classes," said committee member Dawn Sehmer in an e-mail.
Among those who attended Washington, located on Sherman Boulevard on the city's Northwest Side, are Bud Selig, Sen. Herb Kohl, actor Gene Wilder, artist Schomer Lichtner and Gov. Lee Dreyfus, among others.
Information on the event and a number of related events can be found at milwaukeewashington100.com.
My favorite part of the site? Alumna Fran Peltz Assa's photoset of pictures taken during a tour of the Washington building, including a number of great architectural details and some really lovely tilework. One of her photos – of a wooden banister – is very similar to a photo I took this spring at Neeskara School.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
