Members of Class of 2017 add chapters to family legacies
During high school, many teenagers have the opportunity — whether viewed as a privilege or a curse — to follow in the footsteps of older siblings or pave the way for younger ones.
But what about being the last of 18 grandchildren to graduate from the same school?
At Bishop Watterson High School, graduating senior Katie Theado has spent the past four years walking the hallways that her three siblings and 14 cousins navigated before her. And, before all of them, the parents of all 18 graduated from the Roman Catholic school on the North Side.
The string gives new meaning to “living up to the family name.”
As high schools throughout
central Ohio gear up for commencements (including some this week ), The Dispatch identified three with “legacy” families who are represented in the Class of 2017.
Bishop Watterson
The last of the “originals” — as the grandchildren in the Theado family are called — will don her cap and gown Saturday morning and become the final member of the second generation of Theados to earn a diploma from Watterson.
“It’s kind of bittersweet, but I’m excited to get a new start,” said Katie, who in the fall will attend Indiana University in Bloomington. “I think I’ll be more sad once I’m gone.”
The Theado legacy at the school began with Katie’s aunt Mary Ann — the oldest sibling of Katie’s father, William Theado, and a member of the Eagles’ Class of 1969.
Mary Ann, William (Class of 1979) and three of their four siblings — Walter (Class of 1970), Tom (Class of 1972) and Cathy (Class of 1975) — as well as two of those siblings’ spouses (Class of 1970 and Class of 1972) all attended Watterson, followed by their combined 18 children. The four other Watterson graduates in the family married into the second generation.
With the family’s enduring connection to the school, Katie Theado had been immersed in Watterson tradition long before she started school there in August 2013, having attended more than her share of Eagles football games and other schoolrelated activities.
On the first day of her freshman year, Katie’s oldest cousin, Erin Gruver — a science teacher and cheerleading coach — greeted her.
“The first year I was teaching, I taught my brother and one of my cousins,” recalled Gruver, a 1993 Watterson graduate. “It was strange.” Strange yet familiar. The running family joke is that Theado protocol requires members to marry a Watterson graduate.
Kidding aside, they all take pride in their alma mater, said Gruver, noting that the long stretch of graduates is probably unusual given this era of mobility — not to mention the cost of a Catholic education.
“We all know that coming here is a sacrifice for our parents,” she said. “We don’t take it lightly. We could’ve easily gone to public schools.”
Watterson Principal Chris Campbell knows the Theado family well: He lived next door to Katie’s father and siblings while growing up and graduated from Watterson about the same time — in 1977.
“They’re one of the families who have stuck around a long time, and there are so many (in the Theado family),” Campbell said. “They haven’t spread that far apart. They’ve been so active as students and adults in the Watterson family.”
Gruver said that the highquality education provided by Watterson and the school’s emphasis on faith and values have kept the family coming back.
Indeed, even though the Watterson run of secondgeneration Theados will end Saturday, the next generation is nipping at their heels: Gruver’s oldest child, a son, will be a freshman in the fall.
“He knows the legacy, she said. “All our pictures are on the wall.”
West Jefferson
Graduating senior Haley Green is all but a shoo-in for the West Jefferson Alumni Association scholarship.
Her mother, Maria Shepherd, won the honor as a senior in 1993 (when Shepherd’s last name was Fry); and her great-aunt Lisa Fry won it in 1981.
It’s unlikely that any of Green’s classmates have more relatives who have graduated from West Jefferson High School — one of the criteria for the award — than she does.
“It was fun at first to see how many you can get,” she said. “It got crazy real quick.”
The list of familial alumni that Green submitted with her scholarship essay totaled 45, but her mother said that the count — which spans four generations and includes Green’s father and stepfather (both also members of the Class of 1993) — is probably incomplete, as she didn’t know everyone’s graduation year.
As far as the family knows, the earliest relative to have graduated from West Jefferson was Dave Ogilvie, Green’s great-great uncle and a member of the Class of 1944.
Green’s great-grandfather George Ogilvie (Class of 1950), as well as her maternal grandparents — Don and Ann (Ogilvie) Fry (Class of 1972 and 1973, respectively) — also graduated from West Jefferson. In addition, Don Fry’s seven siblings and Ann Fry’s two siblings are graduates of the school, as are 11 of the 14 children of Don Fry and his siblings.
Because Green doesn’t carry her mother’s maiden name of Fry — which is widely known in the community — teachers didn’t make the family connection until she let it slip who her mother is.
“My science teacher called me ‘Little Maria,’” said Green, who plans to study pharmacy at Ohio Northern University in Ada. “It wasn’t a bad name. My mom was quiet; everyone was quiet.”
The simplicity and tightknit nature of the smalltown school appealed so much to Shepherd and her then-husband, Kevin Green, that they decided to return to the area to raise their three girls after having lived several years in Marysville.
“It’s safe, and we don’t have to worry about the kids,” Shepherd said. “It’s home.”
The mother and daughter like to joke that Green has to check the family tree before
dating anyone from West Jefferson, but they appreciate how someone is always looking out for them — both at school and around town.
Having relatives all graduate from West Jefferson isn’t unusual, said Principal Dave Metz, but the number from Green’s clan is.
“Quite a few people leave and move on,” said Metz, who is retiring this year after 46 years with the school. “Everybody in her family stayed in the area, which is what you need.”
Although Green will be moving to Hardin County for college, she doesn’t expect the family legacy at the school to end with her two younger sisters or half-sister.
“My kids will go to West Jeff probably,” she said. “Everybody is really close.”
Bexley
Olivia Anderson didn’t go much more than a class period without seeing a relative in the hallways at Bexley High School.
Her younger sister, Bea, is finishing her sophomore year there, and four of her cousins — including Maggie Walker, with whom she will graduate on Sunday — also attend the school.
“You turn the corner and you see your sister or your cousin,” Olivia Anderson said.
The experience mirrors that of her mother, Heidi (Powers) Anderson. When she attended Bexley High, her brother, David, and two of their cousins were also enrolled. (The oldest Powers sibling, Megan Walker — Maggie’s mother — graduated in 1982.)
“That was our ‘ratpack,’” said Heidi Anderson, a 1988 graduate. “Having cousins was such a big part of growing up.”
When it came time to raise their families, all three Powers siblings ended up back in the neighborhood of their childhood.
“I married a guy from New York,” Heidi Anderson said. “Our first house was in Bexley. We had this assumption that’s where our kids would go. There’s a sense of community with this school. There’s a healthy, secure balance.”
When Megan Walker and her husband moved to Bexley from Washington, D. C., they thought they might send their children to private schools, but that thought dissipated after meeting with Maryland Elementary School officials.
“We like the diversity of the public-school system,” Walker said.
The seniors’ mothers can’t help noting the differences in the school between then and now: Academics reign supreme nowadays, and the number of extracurricular activities has increased significantly.
Exhibit A: The girls lacrosse team, on which Olivia Anderson plays, didn’t exist when her mother was at the school.
The “everybody knows your name” atmosphere of the high school, Olivia said, has had its benefits.
“If I score in lacrosse, everyone sees it in the paper and congratulates you,” said Olivia, who will attend Providence College in Rhode Island.
Added cousin Maggie, who plans to go to the University of Dayton: “Everyone has each other’s backs.”
The loyalty to Bexley will surely continue for at least several more years in the Powers family, as some relatives have yet to start high school.
They, of course, will be Lions, too.