Distinguished Alumni

Crystalea Burns-Pelletier, class of 1978, served as Deputy Commissioner (Ret.) of the Buffalo Police Department.

Bill Burton, class of 1995, served as Barack Obama's press secretary for the 2008 election campaign.

Lucille Clifton, class of 1953, is a well-known poet. For more information on her, click here.

Alan Evans (1992) and Neal Evans (1994) play in the band SouLive, whose sound is a blend of soul, jazz, and hiphop.

Leecia Eve, class of 1982, currently serves as a National Advisor on Election Reform for the American Democracy Institute, and is former counsel to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sidney Farber, FMP '20, scientist, doctor and founder of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Bridget Finn, class of 1994, graduated from Stanford University in 1998. She competed in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, as an alternate for the Synchronized Swim team (who won a gold medal). In 2000, she competed in the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, on the Synchronized Swim team.

Raymond B. Fosdick, class of '01- Undersecretary General of United Nations, Head of Rockefeller Foundation, President of NYC Board of Education.

Mylous Hairston, class of 1983, is a reporter and news anchor for WIVB-TV in Buffalo, NY.

Gregory Halpern, class of 1995, is a photojournalist and author of Harvard Works Because We Do.

Jake Halpern, Class of 1993, graduated from Yale University in 1997 and is a regular contributor to the New Yorker, Outside, The New York Times, The New Republic, Boston Magazine Online, and NPR’s All Things Considered, Halpern is the author of the book Braving Home, for which he traveled from a city inside an Alaskan high-rise to the base of a Hawaiian volcano to meet the stubborn citizens of America’s least-habitable places.

Craig Hannah (1988) is a recently appointed Buffalo City Court judge, and husband of one of our current Assistant Principals, Mrs. Angela Hannah.

Richard Hofstadter graduated from Fosdick-Masten Park High School in 1933, earned his B.A. from the University at Buffalo and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1942. Four years later, Dr. Hofstadter began his academic career at Columbia where he continued to teach until his untimely death in 1970. Hofstadter also won two Pulitzer Prizes. Hofstadter won his first Pulitzer in Historical Writing for The Age of Reform in 1956 and his second for General Non-Fiction for Anti-Intellectualism in American Life in 1964.

Dr. Jerome Kassirer, class of 1950, was a well-known crusader on ethical issues in medicine in the United States, as well as the Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for many years.

Catherine "Kit" Klein, Fosdick-Masten Park 1928 graduate, competed in the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, and won the Bronze Medal for Figure Skating (500M) and Gold (1500). She also compted in the 1936 Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. In 1936 she won World Skating Championship, Stockholm Sweden.

Steve Mesler, class of 1996, is a member of the 2006 United States Olympic Bobsled Team. For more information, click here.

Noted author and Lackawanna native Connie Porter, author of two novels: All-Bright Court, selected by the American Library Association as one of the Best Books of 1991 and by the New York Times as one of its Notable Books of 1991, and Imani All Mine. Porter is also the author of the Addy book series of the American Girls Collection for young readers, which has sold more than three million copies. After graduating from CHS, Porter graduated from the State University of New York at Albany in 1981 and earned her M.F.A. from Louisiana State University. She later attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference of Middlebury College. She has taught English and creative writing at Milton Academy and Emerson College in Massachusetts and at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Robert E. Schmidt, graduate of 1933, worked under the stage name of “Buffalo” Bob Smith, he gained fame in the 1950's with his sidekick Howdy Doody.

Kevin SerWacki, class of 1991, was born in Nairobi Kenya where he first developed an interest in drawing elephants, giraffes and waves. Eventually this interest grew to include spaceships, people and rabbits. During his high school years spent at City Honors, Kevin was never seen without his .5 mechanical pencil, aluminum drawing pad and “Burts Surf Shop” hat. Thankfully the hat is now long gone, but the drawing pad and pencil went with him to college. He attended the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1991 and graduated in 1995 with a degree in Illustration. Kevin has recently written and illustrated his first children’s book, Doorknob the Rabbit and the Carnival of Bugs. It was published in 2005 by Tricycle Press. His second book Number Twocan is currently making the rounds with several publishers.

Rexford Tugwell (1911) was the Assistant Secretary (1933) and Under Secretary of Agriculture (1934-37) under Presiden Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 1941 until 1946.

Curtis Williams, class of 1980, is a musician, who wrote for and played with Kool and the Gang.
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