Blue Eagle Foundation Inducts Four into Wall of Fame

Four graduates were honored at Saturday night's Alumni / Homecoming Wall of Fame Gala at the in Nazareth.

The 2011 honorees were:

• Joseph F. Reichel ’47 (posthumously)
• Dr. Larry R. Sherman ’52
• Dr. Walter L. Miller ’61
• Dr. Robert T. Yavorski ’79

Wall of Fame honors go to Nazareth High graduates “who have achieved something above and beyond,” Peg Ferraro, executive director of the Nazareth Area Blue Eagle Education Foundation, said in a previous interview.

The foundation promotes and finances educational programs in the Nazareth Area School District that are not funded by the district budget, Ferraro explained.

Miller traveled almost 3,000 miles from his home in California to revisit old friends and memories.

The four Wall of Famers at a glance:

• Reichel was a former Northampton County coroner, a well-known funeral director and leader of a popular polka band.
• Sherman, of Scranton, is a retired chemistry professor at the University of Scranton and a lifelong volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America.
• Miller lives in San Francisco, where he conducts research in pediatric endocrinology with the University of California at San Francisco. He has received numerous accolades, including a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Duke University.
• Yavorski is a gastroenterologist/internist at Charlotte Medical Clinic in North Carolina. His medical articles have been widely published.

The Nazareth Area Blue Eagle Education Foundation, formed in 2002, raises money for programs and equipment to be used in the district that cannot be financed in the increasingly strained district budget, Ferraro said.

“As school budgets get tighter we try to provide things outside the curriculum,” she said.

Examples of foundation-funded efforts include science and writing camps held over the summer and the installation of a new gymnasium floor, Ferraro noted.

For more information on the Blue Eagle Foundation, visit edfoundation.nazarethasd.org.