Hailing from very different fields, the 2008 Lyons Township High School Hall of Fame program will welcome an award-winning actor/writer, head of Chicago’s CTA, world renowned composer/musician, multiple national championship running coach, and a leader in the field of clinical pharmacological research. Five LT alumni have been chosen for induction into the 2008 Hall of Fame.
The LTHS Board of Education established the Hall of Fame to recognize the accomplishments of some 65,000 graduates, faculty and friends of LT and to provide role models to students. The Hall of Fame is organized by a volunteer member committee of alumni, faculty, staff, students and citizens.
Michael Hotchcock
Michael Hitchcock graduated from LTHS in 1976 then continued his education at Northwestern University’s School of Speech, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and at UCLA, where he earned a master’s degree in film and television production. Since then, he has become well-known and respected as an actor, writer, and producer. His solid comedic timing has landed him featured roles in critically-acclaimed films “Best in Show,” “For Your Consideration,” “A Mighty Wind,” and “Waiting for Guffman.” “Best in Show” earned a Golden Globe nomination for “Best Comedy” and won “Funniest Motion Picture” by the American Comedy Awards and British Comedy Awards. Hitchcock and his co-actors from “A Mighty Wind” were awarded “Best Ensemble Cast” by the Florida Film Critics Circle and were nominated for “Best Ensemble Acting” by the Phoenix Film Critics Society. Hitchcock’s numerous film and television appearances also include “Serenity,” “Heartbreakers,” “Wild Hogs,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Desperate Housewives, “Entourage,” “Arrested Development,” and the television series, “Men of a Certain Age.” Hitchcock’s writing credits include the films “Where the Day Takes You,” “House Arrest,” “The Ultimate Christmas Present,” and the comedy series, MAD TV, which has been nominated three times by the Writers Guild of America for “Outstanding Writing of a Comedy/Variety Series.” Hitchcock is currently executive producer and writer of the upcoming Comedy Central series, “The Bobby Lee Project.” He remains active in the Los Angeles community by teaching English, math, and improvisation with the L.A. Mentor Program and appears regularly in Hollywood’s popular comedy and improvisational troupe, The Groundlings.
Ron Huberman
Ron Huberman graduated from Lyons Township in 1990, and then earned undergraduate degrees in English and psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1995, he was accepted for training at the Chicago Police Department and worked night patrols while attending courses at University of Chicago during the day, where he earned dual graduate degrees in social service administration and business administration. During his time on campus, he was named a Schweitzer and a Soros Fellow. He climbed the ranks within the City of Chicago to his current position as the President of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), the second largest public transportation system in the country, servicing 1.6 million riders per day. In this role, he has been given the monumental task of operating a financially-strapped, billion-dollar system while trying to advance technology and increase ridership. Previous to this assignment, Huberman served as the Chief of Staff for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley for two years and as the Executive Director of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication prior to that. He has also worked in various capacities for the Chicago Police Department. His most noted accomplishment to date was expanding the Police Department’s existing Citizen and Law Enforcement and Reporting (CLEAR) system in conjunction with the Illinois State Police system to create I-CLEAR. More than 240 local, state and federal law enforcement and criminal justice agencies across the state can share crime information in real time by using this database. Huberman received the national Gary B. Hayes Award for Innovation in Policing in 2002 for his work with I-CLEAR.
Phillip Ramey
After graduating from LT in 1957, Phillip Ramey studied composition with Russian-born composer Alexander Tcherepnin, initially in France and then in Chicago, at DePaul University. Graduate studies were in New York at Columbia University. An accomplished pianist, Ramey gave the premiere of his Concert Suite for Piano and Orchestra in 1962 in Chicago. His work of orchestral scores includes several concertos, chamber-ensemble pieces and a large body of solo-piano works, notably six sonatas, Piano Fantasy and the satiric Leningrad Rag, based on Scott Joplin and written for the legendary Vladimir Horowitz. Ramey’s Horn Concerto, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to celebrate its 150th anniversary, was introduced by that orchestra and conducted by Leonard Slatkin. His orchestration of Aaron Copland’s piano piece, Proclamation, had an historic bi-coastal premiere, performed on the same evening in New York by Zubin Mehta and in Los Angeles by Erich Leinsdorf. Copland once wrote of Ramey, “He is a composer of real individuality, with a flair for dramatic gesture.” A well-known writer on music, Ramey has published hundreds of liner notes, along with a multitude of concert program notes and magazine articles. From 1977 to 1993 he served as Annotator and Program Editor of the New York Philharmonic. His biography of the composer Irving Fine, published in 2005 by the U.S. Library of Congress, received the 2006 Deems Taylor Award for Outstanding Musical Biography. His autobiography was completed in 2007, and in 2008, he finished writing a novel for a German movie company, which will be filmed in Morocco in 2009. Ramey’s music is available from several major publishers, including two CDs of his piano music, the beginning of a complete survey: the first (2006) performed by the British pianist Stephen Gosling; the second (2008) by the Argentinean Mirian Conti. Ramey’s most recent large-scale works are J.F.K.: Oration for Speaker and Orchestra (with a text from speeches by President Kennedy) and Piano Sonata No. 6.
Mary Westrick
After graduation from LT in 1974, Mary Westrick attended Purdue University and received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1978. She continued her education at Purdue, earning both her master’s degree and doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology. Westrick has spent much of her career testing the safety and effectiveness of promising new drugs, treatments or preventive measures in humans. She started her career at Bristol-Meyers, where she served as a research scientist. When her department at Bristol-Meyers relocated out of state, she teamed with a colleague as founder and president of GFI Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., a clinical research company. In just under 10 years, the company went from five to 175 employees with more than $6 million in revenue in 1996. When Collaborative Clinical Research, Inc. purchased GFI, Westrick assumed the position of vice president of corporate operations. She then moved on to Covance, the world’s largest publicly-traded drug development company with annual revenues over $1 billion. Currently, she serves as the global vice president and general manager of Clinical Pharmacology, where she manages more than 750 employees in Europe and North America. She oversees all aspects of clinical pharmacology services and the day-to-day operations of ten clinical research units. Her business unit was recognized as Covance’s “Business Unit of the Year” in both 2003 and 2007, and she was awarded Covance’s “Excellence in People” Award in 2004 for her support and mentoring of her staff. She oversaw construction of a new clinic in 2004 and just opened a new $12.4 million facility with 50,000 square feet of research space. She was the first woman to serve as a general manager of an operations unit at Covance as well as on the company’s Global Leadership Council. She also serves as a member of the Dean’s Industrial Advisory Board in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Purdue University.
Norman Witek
Norman Witek, a 1963 graduate, attended the University of Tennessee on a full athletic scholarship, where he earned his bachelor and master degrees. He began his career as head cross-country and track coach at Brevard College in North Carolina in 1968. He quickly brought great success to the college during his 19-year coaching tenure. His teams won a record four consecutive National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Cross-Country Championships, as well as the NJCAA Marathon Championship. Additionally, he coached 116 All-Americans. Witek is a three-time National Coach of the Year, member of the NJCAA Hall of Fame and a recent inductee to the Brevard College Hall of Fame. Witek has served students as a professor, athletic director, division chair for physical education, and dean of students. He continues to teach Exercise Science and is the coordinator for Physical Education Teacher Licensure. For his years of service, Brevard College awarded him the Brevard Medallion of Honor in May 2008. He also directs the nation’s largest summer distance running camp at the college. Each year, the camp hosts more than 1500 participants arriving individually and as teams to learn from Witek. He also volunteers his time coaching in the community. His knowledge and motivational skills are legendary, and the numerous All-Americans and individual National Champions he has coached pay tribute to his success. In 1999, Adidas World Headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany released the “Brevard” model women’s running shoe in the United States after visiting the summer camp and receiving valuable feedback from Witek and the runners. After several more visits to the camp, Adidas named an updated model of the shoe the “Witek” to show their appreciation for his contributions to the sport of running. The shoe was released in Europe in 2004.
