Chuck Hughes (l-r), Judy Mead, and Earl Smith

Roosevelt High School alumni coming into their own

Contributed By:The 411 News

Getting to their goals has been much like a football game for Roosevelt High School’s alumni groups. They have moved forward only to be pushed back or they’ve dropped the ball. Alumni found it easy getting across the 5 yard line –celebrating their own days in high school with reunions, class trips, and such.

Now they’re coming into their own, remembering and celebrating not only the past but the future.

Some evidence of that came last week when alumni and current students gathered to place the plaque designating Theodore Roosevelt High School as a national historic site worthy of preservation, on the list maintained by the National Register of Historic Places. Judy Mead (’63) said the plaque’s placement comes nearly 4 years after the school earned the designation.

“Several times people had picked up the gauntlet to get Roosevelt on the preservation list and dropped the ball. The National Roosevelt Alumni Association saw it all the way through,” Mead said, earning the designation in 2014. She doesn’t know why the plaque wasn’t installed on the building. “I believe it’s because people moved away and the association’s president Annie May died.”

Mead belongs to the Lady Roosevelt Panthers & Support Group Class of 1963 and they decided to complete the task and support the national association. “Next year, we’re going to get an Indiana State Historical Marker for the school,” she said.

On Friday, alumni from Roosevelt’s Class of 1962 took students to an Early Vote site in Gary and treated them to lunch.

Two new alumni groups, Roosevelt All-Class Reunion and Panther Takeover hold extravaganza weekends with attendances in the thousands and donate parts of their profits to the school. This year, Panther Takeover gave $8,000 to the school.


Roosevelt alumni and current students on the high school’s front steps

Story Posted:11/04/2018