Every Tiger has a Tale

Steven LaTourette, Darrell Issa and Ron Klein have at least two things in common. They are all members of Congress, and they are all graduates of Cleveland Heights High. Their success is no real surprise. Heights High has provided a tremendous foundation for students for a century now. But here is a sign of the times. The three congressmen do not represent adjoining districts. In fact, LaTourette is the only one in Ohio. Issa represents a district in California. Klein is a congressman in Florida. Yes, graduates of Cleveland Heights High have gone on to success across the nation. When people ask me who might be interested in a book about Heights High students, I am quick to point out that Heights High alumni would certainly be drawn to it. So that should make it a best seller across the entire nation. We have spread out. Heights High grads have indeed been on a path to success and happiness. Their journey has taken them to every corner or America. It all began with that first step into that massive building at the corner of Cedar and Lee. Heights High the home of the Tigers. You are fifteen years old. You have finished your junior high days, and have taken that big step to the high school. You wander through the halls on that first day. You figure this has to be the biggest high school in the world. In the ‘60s, enrollment surpassed 3,200, and there were just three grade levels. Which one is the up staircase? Which is the down staircase? What hallway has the even-numbered classrooms? Where are the odd-numbered classrooms? Who are all these kids? How many of them will I get to know? That girl looks familiar. Did she go to the theater program at Cain Park with me when I was in second grade? Was that guy over there in my Boy Scout troop? Gosh, that was five years ago. You keep walking. The incoming seniors look so much older than us. How many students have made their way through these hallways over all these decades? This is the place where Sam Sheppard was a star athlete. Class president. A kid everyone looked up to. A dozen years out of Heights, he would be standing trial for the murder of his wife Marilyn. Sam and Marilyn had become an item back in their days at Roosevelt Junior High. Did Dr. Sam really bludgeon her to death? He would gain national notoriety during what was then thought of as the trial of the century. That guy opening up the assembly in the auditorium is the student council president. He seems outgoing. He has a sincere smile on his face, but is there more going on in his life than we would suspect? What tragedy has changed his life forever? His life at home is a train wreck. How can he keep it a secret? Just who is that guy sitting down next to you in history class? His parents were in Europe during the war. Did they survive the death camps? No, they were among the few who fled to the woods and took part in the resistance movement. Living on the run for years. Part of the underground fighters struggling to survive. And in the mid-‘40s, some of the students wondered who that Japanese American kid was. Where did he come from? He suddenly just appeared. Turns out, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, more than 100,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and sent to detention camps. His father, desperate to get his son an education, found out he could ship him to a Jewish orphanage in University Heights. His son could attend Cleveland Heights High, a couple of thousand miles away from home. The journey of a teenaged boy from Cleveland is far shorter. Just five or six miles. He winds up at Heights High after his mother dies from drug abuse. She was only twenty-eight. The boy is sent to live with relatives. He is determined not to make the mistakes his mother made. He becomes a judge. A Heights student knows his father runs a gambling business in Geauga County. It was legal back in the ‘40s. But a new governor starts clamping down. The boy’s dad pulls up stakes and becomes one of the founding fathers of the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas. A young man travels to Israel with his father for a gathering of Holocaust survivors. He winds up at a hotel registration desk at the same moment a young woman arrives. A chance meeting. He proposes the next day. A university president encourages a waitress to follow her dreams. She puts her children in day care, enrolls in college, and eventually becomes a doctor. The fellow who randomly finds an apartment to rent. His neighbor suggests a job for him. A successful sales career is followed by an opportunity to become one of the highest regarded sales trainers in the nation. Oh, the twists and turns we make on life’s journey. A photographer for the school newspaper winds up face to face with Elvis. Another photographer lands a job with The Cleveland Press, and goes on to shoot more than thirty covers for Sports Illustrated. The Heights grad who wants to be a reporter, but everyone seems to discourage her. She refuses to take no for an answer, and becomes an anchorwoman on a national news program. A scientist who realizes that even those blessed with engineering brilliance can still develop a warm heart. He reaches out to help those in need of medical care around the world. Unexpected detours. A parent suddenly vanishes. Was he murdered? Lives going along smoothly until the unexpected passing of a beloved spouse. A successful career right on track until a diagnosis of cancer during the prime of life. Children raised in poverty during the Depression who attain success and devote their lives to helping others. A man who makes a fortune and builds his family a palace on a hillside. A mudslide begins. He slips into bankruptcy.