Beverly Eckert who was listed as one of the passengers of Flight 3407 was a graduate of Sacred Heart Academy and Buffalo State college.

In our Winter Edition of our alumni paper, she was given the award of Distinguished Alumnae Christus Super Omnia Award at the annual “Spirit of SHA” Awards Dinner, formerly the SHA Gala dinner.

Link to the Cordecho

Beverly Eckert ‘69

Distinguished Alumnae Christus Super Omnia Award

After graduating from Sacred Heart Academy and Buffalo State College, Beverly pursued a rewarding career in insurance, working in Boston and New York City. She became a vice president at General Re, a Fortune 500/Berkshire Hathaway Company headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. But, it was the events that unfolded on September 11, 2001 that forever changed her life, when her husband, Sean Rooney was killed while working in the World Trade Center.

Inspired by her husband’s unflinching courage in the face of his impending death, Beverly rejected the conventional victim’s role, and instead co founded an advocacy group called “Voices of September 11th”, helping to represent the interests of 9/11 families on a variety of contentious issues. Most notably, she lobbied in Washington for a full investigation into the terrorists attacks. She helped orchestrate country-wide support for a 9/11 Commission, participating in press conferences, testifying on Capitol Hill and organizing rallies, protests, and vigils in Washington and New York. She then helped Congress pass legislation implementing 9/11 Commission recommendations that were critically needed to prevent future attacks.

Beverly’s efforts and those of her colleagues have been acknowledged on the floor of both the House and Senate, and in 2007, she and five other 9/11 family leaders received special recognition at an awards ceremony at The Center for National Policy in Washington, DC. She has been interviewed on national TV and radio, and the story of her life with Sean and her work as an activist after 9/11 was featured in an “NBC Dateline” special with Tom Brokaw. Beverly believes her decision to help others and make the country safer, rather than focus on her personal loss has been beneficial to the slow, but steady process of healing.

Currently on SHA’s page there is a tribute to her.

I can’t believe. it. Next year is my 20th high school reunion. Yikes! 20 years I’ve been out of that Hell Hole. Can you believe that the tuition is now $7430? Holy Crap! My parents were upset they had to pay $1350 to $2100 during the years I was there. I can’t imagine them paying that outrageous sum of money now!

Anyway I volunteered to put together the music for the reunion. I am going to compile music from the 4 years we were in high school. This is an easy project for me to do since I have most of this music anyway.

1. Careless Whisper, Wham!
2. Like A Virgin, Madonna
3. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Wham!
4. I Want To Know What Love Is, Foreigner
5. I Feel For You, Chaka Khan
6. Out Of Touch, Daryl Hall and John Oates
7. Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Tears For Fears
8. Money For Nothing, Dire Straits
9. Crazy For You, Madonna
10. Take On Me, A-Ha
11. Everytime You Go Away, Paul Young
12. Easy Lover, Phil Collins and Philip Bailey
13. Can’t Fight This Feeling, REO Speedwagon
14. We Built This City, Starship
15. The Power Of Love, Huey Lewis and The News
16. Don’t You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds
17. Cherish, Kool and The Gang
18. St. Elmo’s Fire (Man In Motion), John Parr
19. The Heat Is On, Glenn Frey
20. We Are The World, U.S.A. For Africa
21. Shout, Tears For Fears
22. Part-Time Lover, Stevie Wonder
23. Saving All My Love For You, Whitney Houston
24. Heaven, Bryan Adams
25. Everything She Wants, Wham!
26. Cool It Now, New Edition
27. Miami Vice Theme, Jan Hammer
28. Lover Boy, Billy Ocean
29. Lover Girl, Teena Marie
30. You Belong To The City, Glenn Frey
31. Oh Sheila, Ready For The World
32. Rhythm Of The Night, Debarge
33. One More Night, Phil Collins
34. Sea Of Love, Honeydrippers
35. A View To A Kill, Duran Duran
36. The Wild Boys, Duran Duran
37. You’re The Inspiration, Chicago
38. Neutron Dance, Pointer Sisters
39. We Belong, Pat Benatar
40. Nightshift, Commodores
41. Things Can Only Get Better, Howard Jones
42. All I Need, Jack Wagner
43. Freeway Of Love, Aretha Franklin
44. Never Surrender, Corey Hart
45. Sussudio, Phil Collins
46. Strut, Sheena Easton
47. You Give Good Love, Whitney Houston
48. The Search Is Over, Survivor
49. Missing You, Diana Ross
50. Separate Lives, Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin
51. Raspberry Beret, Prince and The Revolution
52. Suddenly, Billy Ocean
53. The Boys Of Summer, Don Henley
54. One Night In Bangkok, Murray Head
55. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Sting
56. Obsession, Animotion
57. We Don’t Need Another Hero, Tina Turner
58. Material Girl, Madonna
59. Better Be Good To Me, Tina Turner
60. Head Over Heels, Tears For Fears
61. Axel F, Harold Faltermeyer
62. Smooth Operator, Sade
63. In My House, Mary Jane Girls
64. Don’t Lose My Number, Phil Collins
65. All Through The Night, Cyndi Lauper
66. Run To You, Bryan Adams
67. Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen
68. Voices Carry, ‘Til Tuesday
69. Misled, Kool and The Gang
70. Would I Lie To You?, Eurythmics
71. Be Near Me, ABC
72. No More Lonely Nights, Paul McCartney
73. I Can’t Hold Back, Survivor
74. Summer Of ’69, Bryan Adams
75. Walking On Sunshine, Katrina and The Waves
76. Freedom, Wham!
77. Too Late For Goodbyes, Julian Lennon
78. Valotte, Julian Lennon
79. Some Like It Hot, Power Station
80. Solid, Ashford and Simpson
81. Angel, Madonna
82. I’m On Fire, Bruce Springsteen
83. Method Of Modern Love, Daryl Hall and John Oates
84. Lay Your Hands On Me, Thompson Twins
85. Who’s Holding Donna Now, Debarge
86. Lonely Ol’ Night, John Cougar Mellencamp
87. What About Love, Heart
88. California Girls, David Lee Roth
89. Fresh, Kool and The Gang
90. Do What You Do, Jermaine Jackson
91. Jungle Of Love, The Time
92. Born In The USA, Bruce Springsteen
93. Private Dancer, Tina Turner
94. Who’s Zoomin’ Who, Aretha Franklin
95. Fortress Around Your Heart, Sting
96. Penny Lover, Lionel Richie
97. All She Wants To Do Is Dance, Don Henley
98. Dress You Up, Madonna
99. Sentimental Street, Night Ranger
100. Sugar Walls, Sheena Easton

I’m not limiting myself to just this list since there are songs from this year that I love that were not in the mainstream.

Also I have to compile 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989.

Recently I started talking with some friends from high school on Facebook.

This resulted in scanning some pictures of them from 1985 and 1986 which completely embarrassed them.

Some do not even remember me taking these photos. (I had an old Kodak Disk Camera at the time.)

I will share some with you as you will like to laugh too.

This is Amy in 1989 in the balcony of our high school. This is where we used to play “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

Oh I’m sorry Mick. Pardon me…excuse me…ERIC! You look great! JULES!

This is Christine in front of our lockers. Hers was number 66, mine was 67 and Patti’s was 68. This was on the 3rd floor of our school. I’m not sure if they are still painted orange.

Senior Breakfast 1989 – This is me and Beth.

Can you see my Debbie Gibson makeup?

This is Amy and her mom in our cafeteria in 1989 for the Senior Breakfast. Imagine seeing people SMOKING in a public building! WOW!

This is Patti and Christine in our Homeroom (103) Freshman year of high school. Christine hated having her picture taken.

One more! This is Patti rocking out to the song Valleri by the Monkees in my room in 1986.

Never give up!
Degrassi: The Musical resurrects the pregnancy, the acid casualty and the Zit Remedy, all in time for the big dance
by SACHA JACKSON

“We’re not the best singers, we’re not the best dancers and we’re probably not the best actors,” says writer/director Eve Thomas. “It’s not just a musical about Degrassi Junior High, it’s what a musical would be like if it were put on by the original cast.”

If you were lucky enough to grow up in the ’80s with a TV, chances are you’ve seen Degrassi. Put it down to a lack of cable television or a perfect time slot (after school), it wasn’t so much about loving or hating it, the show seemed to exist beyond judgement—it just was.

Thomas, who grew up in Montreal West and went to Royal West High School, wrote Degrassi: The Musical for a couple of different reasons. “It’s something I wanted to see and I realized I wouldn’t see it unless I put it on myself,” she says. “I don’t remember what the origin was—it was something out of leftfield—but the first scene I imagined was with Stephanie Kaye.”

Kaye, for those unschooled in Degrassi history, was a goodie-goodie who dressed like every other middle-schooler until she hit grade eight and swapped her dowdy duds for something a little more skank. “That first image of her changing in the bathroom lent itself to a cabaret-style striptease set to an All That Jazz-inspired song,” Thomas says. “All the music is inspired by Broadway.”

Cramming the first three seasons of the show into 45 minutes was tough, “I did it all by memory,” Thomas says. “And it doesn’t make sense, chronologically, if you get the real fanboys in the audience. But all the big storylines are there… basically, the whole thing is a nostalgia trip. The story arch and all that stuff, I didn’t pay much attention too. It’s all leading up the big dance.”

Even much of the dialogue remains intact. “It’s all quasi-verbatim and I didn’t really put any jokes in it. Like the original show, it’s funniest when they’re playing it straight, like when they’re trying to make a serious point about teenage pregnancy.”

Also in true Degrassi form, none of the cast are professional actors, most haven’t been on stage since elementary school and none have been involved with Fringe before. Thomas even cast herself as Melanie, which was “probably a mistake” but seemed like the only logical choice. “I wear a night guard and I have a lisp when I wear it, and Melanie has braces and a lisp…so it’s actually really natural.”

The rest of the cast is rounded out by friends and friends of friends, Thomas’s partner, Brett Schaenfield, who also co-wrote the play, plays Mr. Raditch, the creative director from her day job’s involved, and though she insists everyone is great, there are a few standouts. “Daniel Francis Haber, who plays Joey Jeremiah—he was my first and only choice. And Wheels, who’s played by Heidi Craig, is a real standout. Occasionally, I’ll look over at her and see glimmers of Neil Hope.”

So what can audiences expect?

“I wouldn’t want to give people the wrong impression. It’s pretty much what you’d expect, except for the tap dance about getting molested.”

DEGRASSI: The Musical, opens
Friday, June 13 at 6 p.m. at Venue 5
Studio Juste Pour Rire (2111 St-Laurent)

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2008/061208/theatre.html

This was written in the Buffalo News as an editorial on April 5 2006. This made me think back to my prom and how I didn’t attend.

Article Found Here

What’s with all the fuss over high school proms?

I’ve never been a 17-year-old girl, so I guess I just don’t understand all the hoopla over high school proms. They seem to have turned into the be-all and end-all event for high schoolers and have become a right, not a privilege.

First is the young woman who has demanded that she bring her girlfriend to her prom at Villa Maria Academy. I’m all for gay rights and have no problem with her lifestyle choice. However, she gave up any rights she had to choosing her prom date by attending a private Catholic high school.

Then there is the local television station that is seeking donations for used gowns to give to needy girls to wear as prom dresses. Feeding and clothing the needy is a worthy endeavor and should be encouraged. But giving them a used gown so they can attend a high school prom? If you can’t afford to buy a prom dress, then maybe you should find a different, less expensive way to celebrate your four years of schooling.

Parents who can’t afford such a luxury item for their child must learn to say “no.” I promise, it won’t hurt them in the long run and it is perfectly legal. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights that guarantees a problem-free prom for every girl and boy.

Sean O’Neil
Tonawanda

First, I would like to state that I did not attend my prom: Junior or Senior prom.

Second, I attended and all-girls catholic high school in the mid to late 1980s.

I never thought of the Proms (I’m using an S since there are two of them) as being the end all party for your 4 years of schooling. How can it be when there is a Junior prom at the end of your 3rd year. Isn’t that is why it’s called Junior/Senior Prom? Or doesn’t every school have that?

I’m not a fan of getting all “gussied up” for dances or even graduation. (I was made to purchase a white prom gown for graduation as it was mandatory for the ceremony. The gown had to be floor length for the tradition of the school. Talk about a waste of money. Worn once, sat in a closet until a few years ago. It was donated to Amvets.)

To me, the Junior prom didn’t matter. I personally don’t even remember when our Junior prom was held or where it was held.

Senior year, a few friends and I decided we wanted to go to the prom stag. The school didn’t encourage going stag and did not sell single tickets.

This posed a problem.

How were we to get around the Two Ticket rule and the ‘write your prom date’s name and address down on the sheet’?

We didn’t. We didn’t want to go after what happened when a friend of ours decided to sign up, buy two tickets for going stag and then asked her friend to go as a ‘friend’ and not as a date.

The wrath of God came down because of this. It was a catholic school. Of course the wrath of God MUST come down on these two sinners! They wanted to go Stag!

The other friend was a girl. They were not lesbians nor were they adveristing that were going as lesbians. They were going as two friends without dates that wanted to attend the prom.

Once the Principal found out {the Same Sister M. in my previous college entry} both students were pulled into her office and they were drilled whether or not they were lesbians.

If she personally knew these two girls, she would know they were not. But what if they were? Why were the tickets sold in pairs and not singles? How many more student didn’t attend the prom because of this backlash from the Principal branding you as gay?

They both attended the prom. I guessed they convinced her in her two hour tirades.

The prom doesn’t have to be expensive – but gowns are. I know. I had to buy one for graduation in 1989. Does the above writer know how difficult it is to find a WHITE prom gown that is not a wedding gown and is less than $200 which was my budget? Not too easy.

By the age of when the senior prom takes place, those students should have afterschool jobs where they are able to pay for their own gowns and shoes and limos. Since when does the parent jump at everything the child or teenager wants? If they want to go to the prom, then they must pay for it. Simple as that.

If that means buying a used prom gown, Good For them! They used their own money to purchase one of the most expensive items for that night.

I guess what confuses me is that parents purchasing all these lavish items for their children and teens. If one cannot afford it, then they cannot go or have the item. Simple as that.

In the end, I did go out on Prom Night.

A bunch of us: Amy, Carol, Linda, Anne-Marie and myself decided to go to a restaurant and then see a movie.

We were all 17 or 18 years old.

How would you feel, at that age, going out with your friends to dinner only to be chaperoned by the brother of one of your friends and his friend.

Anne-Marie’s mother didn’t trust us. I guess she shouldn’t since her daughter was actually 19 (failed a grade somewhere down the line).

That had to be the most uncomfortable evening of my life. Especially sitting next to her brother and his friend at the spaghetti warehouse while they were drinking beers and we were jjust trying to talk.

The previous article about students in Buffalo choosing their Dream College/University makes me think about when I was in high school planning my future.

My dream school just happened to be number one on that list, New York University.

I loved New York City and I wanted to be a Music Business major so this was the school I thought I should attend. But that wasn’t the main reason I wanted to attend it.

I wanted to show the principal of my high school {Sister M.} that I could apply and be accepted to the school.

She told me that I “shouldn’t set my standards so high.”

Determination lead me to give everything I had to get into NYU. I never even applied to any local colleges because I didn’t want to stay in the Western New York Area.

The background of this decision and what drove me to make this my number one priority back in 1989 was that I went to a prestigious all-girls catholic high school. I was not rich nor in with the main cliques that received special treatment from the teachers and principal because of who they were.

My classmates consisted of girls like:
Mayor Masiello’s Daughter (she was my “big sister” when I was a Freshman)
The daughter of Corky of ‘Harvey and Corky’ fame (if you remember them from promotions in the 70s and 80s)
Mayor Griffin’s two daughters
The daughter of the doctor who stitched up Clint Malarchuk, the Sabres goalie in 1989

http://bubble-cast.com

And various other Doctors, Lawyers and politician daughters of the city of Buffalo and the affluent suburbs.

Of course, I didn’t fit into any of those categories. I was just a normal person who, in 8th grade, was told that I would never be accepted to this school because I was in the B Group. Yup, Just like in Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.

During my Senior year, I had many family problems happening with my dad being sick. The one thing I wanted to do was to drop Physics (which was taught by Sister M., the principal of the school) and pick up a 5th year of Spanish.

After telling the guidance counselor of what I wanted to do, she informed the the principal/physics teacher of my decision. I felt as though everything was going well.

This was until One day, during a senior free that I had, Sister M. asked if she could speak to me in her office.

That was 2 hours that I can barely remember. I remember a few things like her making me cry by terrible things she said about me and my family, that my parents make excuses for themselves which are projected onto me, and that I need to tune out the problems (this is where she gave me a walkman that was confiscated from another student – I refused to take it since it wasn’t mine).

She then asked me where I was planning on going to college. I stated proudly, “NYU.” This is where she knocked me down stating that I wouldn’t get in and not set my standards so high.

The end of the two hour torture from her was with the words, “You are not dropping my class. You are sticking it out for the rest of the year.”

That’s when I contacted my old Chemistry teacher who left the school. He knew what type of person this nun or sister or whatever you wanted to call her was and helped me to pass the regents exam.

Eventually I received my letter from NYU and I was proud. However I didn’t really wanted it announced over the school loudspeaker nor by the principal.

My guidance counselor encouraged me to put my name on the list for the announcements. I didn’t realize that this was going to be read at some Senior mass/celebration.

Sister M. went down the list reading the names accepted to some prestigious schools with scholarships (I won one that covered 50% of my tuition). When she got to my name, she fumbled and mixed my last name up with another Christine in the class whose last name began with a K. Sister M. then realized her mistake and corrected it.

I was horrified and furious! My parents were there listening to her mess up my name.

I never found my senior year to be so glorious and memorable since Sister M. found it possible to make my life hell (and I know she did this to other students as well).

But as you can see above, I did get accepted to NYU. I didn’t stay long enough to sit in a classroom as I got homesick and was put in a dorm that didn’t house Freshman eventhough I was one.

But that’s another story in itself.

Remember applying to college?