CONNECT. REFLECT. CELEBRATE. REMEMBER.
By JOHN KEREZY, member, Rhodes Class of 1974
A hamburger cost about 28 cents, and if you splurged on buying a quarter pounder with cheese from the McDonald’s on Memphis Avenue, it would set you back 70 cents in the fall of 1973, our senior year at James Ford Rhodes High School. About 75 cents would purchase a dozen large eggs at the A&P on Broadview Road or the Kroger on Fulton Road. If our moms were warming up frozen vegetables to serve on the dinner table, a package of them cost about a quarter. Gasoline was still cheap about $.38 a gallon, but the Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil embargo in the Fall of ’73 would change all that.
There were nearly 500 members of our class at Rhodes High, with about 475 graduating in June 1974. Our high school years were an era of great social and political change. The draft and the Vietnam War were still going on when we entered 9th grade over at Mooney Junior High. Earth Day and Women’s Liberation were nascent movements. Richard Nixon was about to depart from the national stage, and teaching, engineering, the medical field and journalism were still highly regarded professions.
Many classmates went on to college. Many more classmates went right into the work world from high school, holding down jobs such as secretary or laborer at local automobile factories or steel mills. Others entered military service. And it was still commonplace for female classmates just a couple of years ahead of our class to return to Rhodes for a visit wearing a wedding ring and carrying a baby.
Our class will connect, reflect, celebrate, and remember when we gather for our official 50th reunion on Sunday, September 1. The main reunion event will be a journey on the cruise ship Lady Caroline. We will embark at the ship’s pier on the West Bank of the Cuyahoga River next to the Powerhouse at 6:30 pm, for a trip on Lake Erie beginning at 7 that evening.
There are other events in the works (including a visit back to Rhodes High) over the reunion weekend, but in order to participate first we need to connect with everyone. We have a good list of more than 300 of our classmates, but we’re also missing information from dozens of members. The Reunion Committee, chaired by Lynea Wahlstrom Derwis, has been working hard for years now to devise a special event (the cruise) and other activities over Labor Day Weekend as well. This committee wants you to connect with us – with everyone — through a Google link and form near the bottom of this story. But first, let’s take a look at the accomplishments of a few of our classmates:
SUE HLAVACEK
Long before there was a Caitlin Clark on the scene, our class had its own athletic superstar in SUE HLAVECEK. Rhodes’ women’s volleyball team won the Senate Championship with a perfect 8-0 record in Fall 1973, thanks to Sue’s many spikes from the front court. It would have won the basketball tournament too, save for a leg injury to Sue. The team still finished second thanks to excellent play and leadership from LYNEA WAHLSTROM, SONYA SEDLACEK, CHERYL STANDRING, DIANE HANSEN, and others. The basketballers had a perfect 7-0 regular season mark and then went 2-1 in the post-season tournament.
Sue next matriculated to Cleveland State, where she set all kinds of records in women’s basketball for the Vikings. She still holds the record for most rebounds in a single game (28) and was the first women’s basketball player to score more than 1,000 points in her career. From there, she went on to play in the newly formed Women’s Basketball League (WBL) a pre-cursor to today’s WNBA.
Today, Sue is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Senior Games Association. Every year, more than 100,000 people ages 50+ experience camaraderie and challenge through Senior Games events nationwide. The athletes and the organization smash ageist stereotypes and showcase the physical, mental, and social benefits of staying active as we age.
PART I OF A TWO-PART SERIES ABOUT THE RHODES CLASS OF 1974
Sue has been with the NSGA for more than 10 years. It was an organization she grew to admire and love as a result of her work with the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission when Cleveland hosted the National Senior Games in 2013. Sue has moved up the ladder at the NSGA, formerly serving as chief operating officer for the organization.
“The National Senior Games Association is special because it promotes health and well-being for everyone age 50+,” Sue says. “Also, women in the pre-Title IX era are playing sports, some for the first time in their lives as they never had the opportunity to play in school.”
Sue feels fortunate in her own life and athletic career. “We had great teams with a lot of talent at Rhodes, and Bev Staidle was a great coach. She taught me how to play the game,” Sue says. “That helped me with my first teaching job at Mayfield High School, where I taught physical education and coached varsity volleyball and basketball.
Perhaps Sue made her greatest impact at Notre Dame College, where she served as athletic director from 1997 to 2012. “In my time there, Notre Dame went coed, and I had to help jump-start the men’s athletic program. We also transitioned from affiliation with the NAIA to the NCAA, and our wrestlers also won three national championships. My first year there we had six sports, women only, and when I left the college was offering 20 sports programs for both men and women.”
Today Sue still lives in Northeast Ohio, and she’s planning to be on the Lady Caroline for our 50th reunion as well.
MISSING!
Can you help?? We have identified about 430 classmates from Rhodes ’74, and many of them are receiving post cards from the Reunion Committee. But we know that about 50 classmates have died, and about 30 are missing. Here is a link to the “missing” list. Please give it a look/see, and if you know names & address of any of them, please pass them along to either classmate: Debbie Steopwoy Vassel at 330-416-7046 or via Facebook Messenger, OR Terrie Kufrin Arcuri at: tlabreeze@aol.com, or via Facebook Messenger, or at 216-570-4623. Here is the list:
DR. ALBERT HAKAIM
If there is something the matter with your heart, classmate Albert Hakaim can probably tell you all the details and recommend the best treatment. Dr. Hakaim is a pioneer in the development of stent grafts to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms, and decades of practice and research on the heart have made him a subject matter expert in the field of cerebrovascular and aortic aneurysmal diseases.
“We don’t really know what causes these aneurysms. But most likely, at the molecular level, the arteries are subjected to whatever biochemical or frictional forces caused the aneurysm,” Dr. Hakaim said in a 2017 interview. “Our emphasis is on screening and fixing aneurysms before they are symptomatic.”
After Rhodes, Dr. Hakaim graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University and then went on to the Ohio State University to earn his M.D. degree. From there, he conducted his medical internship and residency at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, and later specialized in organ transplantation, vascular surgery and endovascular surgery. He was also honored as a Distinguished Fellow by the Society for Clinic Vascular Surgery.
Later in his career, Dr. Hakaim joined the staff of the Mayo Clinic. He was Chair of the Department of Surgery there from 2013 to 2021, and was also honored as Educator of the Year in Surgery in 2012. His medical practice and teaching duties were at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. “I haven’t been back to Cleveland since 2019, so I’m due for a trip (home),” he says.
In addition to performing or consulting on about 12,000 heart surgeries in his career, Dr. Hakaim continued to study diseases and their cure in his profession. He has also been the lead investigator in nearly a dozen clinical trials on a variety of cardiovascular subjects, mainly focused on stents and stem cells He also has a clinical interest in the use of stem cells to prevent arterial thickening after surgery, a process which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Dr. Hakaim mentioned Miss Nassif and Mr. Sharp in social studies as two of his most important teachers. “I think my time at Rhodes was very important to my career development and leadership skills. Although at the time it was not obvious,” he says.
Now retired and living in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, Dr. Hakaim is planning to head back to Northeast Ohio for our reunion. He hasn’t been back home since 2019.
DOREEN SHUMAKER CANNON
Doreen Cannon’s ‘second’ career is by far the most enjoyable. After Rhodes, Doreen studied and graduated from Marietta College and went into retail management. “I had my son in 1993, and did the ‘stay-at-home’ mom thing,” she recalls. “When I decided to go back to work in 1998, I attended a career fair at Cleveland State.”
There she talked with members of the group Hard Hatted Women. “I always liked to work with my hands. It was a trait I picked up from my father. So, I decided to learn how to become a plumber.” Doreen was a bit older than the average plumber’s apprentice, and just about the only woman in plumbing when she began in 1998.
The career was like a duck taking to water for her. “I really enjoyed it,” she recalls. “I worked on a lot of new construction and renovation of big buildings in Cleveland, and also did a lot of projects at the Cleveland Clinic. Remember that it’s plumbers who install medical gas lines in hospitals. It was very gratifying.”
At the same time, Doreen felt called to be a leader and to also encourage other women to enter careers in building trades. “My dad was always in a labor union, and I knew that I’d receive equal pay and benefits even as a female in the trades thanks to a union, so I joined Plumbers Local 55.”
Doreen’s first title was journey level plumber, but she advanced in both her profession and the union. “I was elected to the Union’s executive board in 2007, and three years later was elected president of the union. I was re-elected three more times, so I ended up serving for 12 years as Local 55’s president,” she says.
She also transitioned into teaching, beginning as a part-time instructor with the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee. First her teaching duties were in nights, but eventually she became a day-time instructor. She’s since retired, but still works about eight hours a week for the group Cleveland Builds by going to high schools and career fairs to encourage young people—especially women – to consider a career in building trades.
“I have so much passion about opportunities for women in the trades, so I tell them what a great opportunity these apprenticeships are,” she explains. “Women made up less than 2 percent of labor positions when I began this career. Today it’s nearly 5 percent, but we still have a long way to go.”
Doreen was involved in a lot of activities at Rhodes, but she remembers serving as a gym leader the most. “Our era was a great time, as there were many more opportunities for girls and women (than in the past). I took advantage of that.”
After being part of the Rhodes ’74 reunion activities Labor Day weekend, Doreen will be heading for the Philippines as part of the international group Tradeswomen Building Bridges.
CONNECT NOW
To help us communicate more with you about other activities planned for our 50th reunion weekend, and to help the Reunion Committee keep in touch with you and your classmates now and in the future, click on the link below or point your camera to the QR code. You’ll be sent to a Google Form. Please fill out the form, and then you’ll receive news and additional information on the Rhodes Class of 1974.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17oLNqfZ9hwG8WwngqFG6BSPb2Tb28JV_to4OgmidULg/edit
Kerezy, author of this story, is an associate professor of Media & Journalism Studies at Cuyahoga Community College. He can be reached at john.kerezy@tri-c.edu
Remember – You get more from ’74! Connect. Reflect. Celebrate. Remember.
For more information:
National Senior Games Association (Sue Hlavacek) https://nsga.com
Dr. Albert Hakaim
Feature story: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/despite-two-aortic-aneurysms-care-at-mayo-clinic-has-kept-dennis-brennan-healthy/
Here’ s a link to details about one of Dr. Hakaim’s clinical trials:
https://www.mayo.edu/research/clinical-trials/cls-20436928
Here’s a podcast, titled “The Fix” featuring Doreen Cannon
https://www.oatey.com/women-trades-w-doreen-cannon-president-plumbers-union-local-55
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