Letter from Michael A. Burke to Austintown Fitch HS Faculty and Admin Personnel, dated 25 Oct 2020

Dear Principals, Staff, and Faculty,

This is a letter of gratitude and thanks to all those in the Austintown Fitch HS educational system who made my Sophmore year such an outstanding
success, and also to those who have followed.

I was an Army brat for the first 17 years of my life and had lived all over the
planet. I found myself in Austintown for the 1958-1959 academic year because my dad, Raymond Burke, who grew up in Youngstown, had come home for his final year of military service to work at the (then named) Lordstown Military Reservation in Warren. Along with my mom, Dorotha, we all resided in a small rented house at 111 Dehoff Drive off Mahoning Avenue.

We'd spent the previous 15 months in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and I'd
attended Kaiserslautern American HS for most of my Freshman year (the final two months were spent at Groton HS, Groton, NY). During this tour in Germany (our second) we did a lot of traveling, and my first year of high school was definitely improvisational, to say the least. I was so glad to be in a calmer situation now with the expectation of being in one school for my entire Sophmore year. And what a great year it turned out to be!

I've forgotten specific events, dates, and names - 77 years of a whirlwind life will do that to you - so let me tell you what I do remember.

The teachers were outstanding (I know of what I speak, having spent five years
as an assistant professor and seven years as an adjunct professor of Computer Science at Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg, MA). They knew the subject matter well and how to teach it, were willing to put in extra time and effort when needed, and they cared. The two subjects/courses I remember most are Chemistry, which ran for the entire academic year and included a section of Organic Chemistry (which I especially enjoyed), and the math courses - Plane Geometry, Intermediate Algebra, Trigonometry, and Solid Geometry. I was in heaven. (I'm a born mathematician and my first college degree was a BS in Mathematics.)

I worked harder that year that any other in elementary and high school, and it was a labor of love. Austintown Fitch was just that good! I even won a couple of awards that year - I had an essay published in the Annual Essay Anthology by the National Essay Association, and I received District Status in Chemistry in the Preliminary District-State Scholarship Tests at Columbus OH (I don't even know now what that means but it sounds good!). Thank goodness for moms who keep records of these things so they're not totally forgotten - especially true for military brats who can't hang onto stuff because of all the moving around.

The only down side to all this (not Austintown Fitch's fault) was that I spent my Junior year at the aforementioned Groton HS, and wasn't allowed to take the courses that would have followed naturally at Austintown Fitch (they would have been senior-level courses at Groton HS), and so I was put in the Industrial Arts program for that year. I took the Drafting and Industrial
Design sequence and this actually proved to be useful in my career. And I did catch up academically in my Senior year at Rome Free Academy in Rome, NY. And I did get my New York State Regents Scholarship (which I used!).

Let me close by observing that these are difficult times - the culture has changed (often for the worse), education and common sense are more challenged,
many more families are in financial crisis, and our citizens are dying of Coronavirus disease, often in their prime. But I remember my success at Austintown Fitch HS, and so I thank those faculty and adminstrators who were there, who made it all happen, and all those who have followed, and urge you not to lose heart and to keep finding ways to continue making the magic happen. Our planet depends on it.

Thank you. Michael A. Burke