The PHS administration is considering a proposal to erect a Wall of Honor made by two Piedmont parents.
Katie Korotzer and Terisa Whitted approached PHS principal Brent Daniels during the fall semester to outline their plan for a Wall of Honor at PHS to distinguish graduates since WWI to the present “who have chosen to serve our country, often in ways that are neither safe nor comfortable.”
Those being honored by the wall would include graduates who serve our country in branches of the Armed Services, the Red Cross, the Peace Corps, the U.S.O., Foreign Service, Ambassadorships and others suggested by the community, according to the Wall of Honor Executive Summary.
The Wall of Honor envisioned by the organizing committee would be located along the right wall of the entryway to the PHS Library and include an interactive, digital display monitor, a case to hold artifacts and portraits of national heroes from PHS, according to the Executive Summary.
“We don’t have to thank people, we just want to raise awareness,” Whitted said. “Unfortunately, freedom isn’t free and people have to do this and there is a military.”
Daniels said the plan is still in the exploratory phase, and that he is currently seeking feedback from the community, faculty and students, as to how the proposal should progress.
“It is truly a collaborative process of working with all of our different school groups, getting feedback, and being very thoughtful about where this initiative should go,” Daniels said.
The Executive Summary draft was presented to the PHS department chairs on April 19, and will be shown to the PHS Site Council and ASB Senate. Daniels said that he hopes to gather feedback and present the final plan to superintendent Randall Booker by early May, and then decide whether or not to present the proposal to the PUSD School Board for consideration.
“There are some different perspectives and my job will be to build consensus around what’s best for our students at the school,” Daniels said.
Daniels said that some faculty have concerns about the wall’s military focus, while others feel that it should be inclusive of all types of service.
Math teacher Amy Dunn-Ruiz said that the faculty she has talked to support the idea of honoring PHS graduates in service, but some feel that the proper place for such a wall is in the Veterans’ Hall.
“It’s a new topic, so you have to talk about it more than you have to talk about it in other communities,” Korotzer said.
Once the proposal is approved, Korotzer and Whitted said that they plan to publish a website to raise funds and collect stories for the wall.
“[The veterans] would like to be heard, and their service recognized,” Whitted said. “They want to talk!”
Whitted said that the plan for the Wall of Honor originated in 2012, when her own son, Payton Whitted, class of ‘12, decided to graduate a year early and join the Marine Corps. When he returned the following year to visit PHS in uniform, he was asked to leave, Whitted said.
“That is what started me thinking, ‘Wow, there’s such a disconnect between the civilian population and the people who serve,’” Whitted said. “As a parent I understood nobody’s interested in having their kid serve in the military. Nobody knows anything about it, nobody talks about it.”
Whitted said Korotzer contacted her after encountering the same disconnect once her son, TJ Korotzer, class of ‘15, went on to serve in the military. After many discussions they decided to take action and began exploring the history of military service in Piedmont.
Their search led them to unearth some fascinating history, Korotzer said. Working with the Piedmont Historical Society, they rediscovered a wooden sign, which used to stand at the Exedra, buried under the Oakland Avenue bridge. Engraved are 990 names, which were compiled and added to their ongoing list.
“The Wall of Honor started as a wall to honor those who went off to serve and then it grew to become this community wide wall of inspiration,” Terisa said. “It kind of expanded on the concept of what Ambassador Stevens stood for.”
Not only did they uncover history about the town, but also about PHS, Korotzer said. They learned that David Waybur, class of ‘38, was presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor. Another graduate of 1938, Jean Witter, died on a torpedoed ship during WWII, and his family donated the lights and their name for the athletic field.
“It’s actually been a really eye opening process for me, just to see how the school has been impacted through service,” Daniels said.
History teacher Courtney Goen, upon meeting Korotzer and Terisa at a school meeting, decided to incorporate this history into her Modern World History curriculum. She invited the two to present to her classes, and created a service learning project oriented around the legacy of WWII and the Holocaust.
Goen’s students are utilizing the list compiled for the proposed Wall of Honor to research the stories of some of the Piedmont veterans.
“Because there were no online recordings of them, no social media, the only things we know about [the veterans] is what we find in the yearbooks,” sophomore Lane Bentley said.
