Services Jan. 28 for former NRHS teacher

John Michael (Jack) Ward, 85 of Cold Spring, KY, New Richmond High School’s first vocal music director, passed away on January 23, 2016.

In 1957 he was leading the Glee Club at Xavier University when he was hired away to start a Music Program at New Richmond High School. He taught music at New Richmond for 17 years and developed the school's Les Chanteurs choral group into one of the best in Ohio.

Mr. Ward was a 1952 graduate of West Virginia University where he received two bachelor's degrees, pre-med and Music Education. He received his Master in Music Education from WVU in 1957. He was a Captain in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. His music career began at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Weston, West Virginia where he began playing the organ for the Choir at just 10 years old.

In 1974 he became the Supervisor for the Creative & Performing Arts Program with the Norwood City School District in Ohio. In 1972 he started the adult Choir of 75 singers and orchestra members and the boys Scola at St. Thomas Catholic Church in Ft. Thomas, KY. He took the Choir &  Orchestra to the Vatican to sing for Pope John Paul, II and then to Vienna & Salzburg Austria.
When he retired from teaching he didn't – he taught music students at Northern Kentucky University as an Adjunct Professor and he taught Gregorian Chant & Latin Music to students at Bishop Brossart High School Alexandria, Ky. He is a past president of the Cincinnati MacDowell Society. Give him a piano, a chalk board and a piece of blank sheet music and he was happy.

Jack Ward is survived by his wife of 57 years B. Leann (Nicholson) Ward of Cold Spring, KY; daughters Jeanne (Dave) Riggs of Edgewood, KY; Catherine (Dave) Schwer of Villa Hills, KY; Ann (Patrick) Greely of Alexandria, KY; Tricia (Scott) Corder of Fairfield Township, OH; sons Michael (Carol) Ward of Alexandria, KY and Greg (Mary Beth) Ward of Edgewood, KY; 18 Grandchildren, and 5 Great Grandchildren.

Visitation will be on Wednesday, January 27th 2016 from 4:00-8:00 pm at Muehlenkamp-Erschell Funeral Home, 427 S. Ft. Thomas Ave., Ft. Thomas, Kentucky. Mass of Christian Burial will be Thursday, January 28th at 11:00 am at St. Thomas Catholic Church, Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Burial will take place in St. Stephens Cemetery, Fort Thomas, Kentucky. Memorials to St. Thomas Church, 26 E. Villa Pl. Ft. Thomas, KY 41075 or to St. Patrick Catholic Church, 210 Center Ave, Weston, WV 26452. Online condolences can be given at www.dmefuneral.com.

- See more at: http://www.dmefuneral.com/obituary/John-Michael-Ward/Cold-Spring-KY/1583447#obit-services.

NREVSD developing student leaders

The New Richmond Exempted Village School District takes its mission statement seriously and a recent Leadership Conference at New Richmond Middle School was designed help achieve the part of the statement that promises to graduate students able to demonstrate confidence, leadership and responsibility.

NREVSD Supt. Adam Bird tasked NRMS principal Court Lilly and counselor Angela Gray with developing a leadership program for middle school students and student leaders from the district’s fifth and sixth grades.

"We started this experience for 2 reasons,” noted Bird. “First, developing students who will be leaders one day is a part of our mission statement.  Second, it gives us an opportunity to expose 5th and 6th graders to New Richmond Middle School and ease that transition.”

New Richmond Middle School counselor Angela Gray and school principal
Court Lilly (seated), who have been tasked with developing a leadership
program for NREVSD middle school and fifth and sixth grade students,
 discuss the leadership program with Locust Corner Elementary principal Joe Roach.

They selected nationally acclaimed youth leadership development speaker Ted Wiese to kick start the program. Wiese, who is headquartered in Carmel, Ind., presented his Challenge Leadership Program to 40 students from New Richmond Middle School and 32 students from the district’s three elementary schools.

“I cannot brag enough on the program Ted Weise provided at NRMS,” said Gray. “From the moment the students walked into the building they were excited and engaged! Through hands-on activities and fun-loving dialog, Ted brought out the leader in each individual student. It was great to see such a mixture of individuals come together and work side by side on the challenges that Ted put forth. I’m very much looking forward to the students applying what they learned from this experience to their lives.”

Click on the Play button below to watch video highlights of Wiese's program.

Students were divided into 9-member teams who competed in a variety of contests designed to promote skills needed to become a productive member of a team and to emerge as a leader and to work as a productive member of a team.

“Our program is designed for a different leader will emerge from each of our contests,” said Wiese. “Our goal is to get everyone thinking about team building and working together for a common goal and then have everyone develop into a leadership role.”

The Leadership Conference wasn’t just for the positive classroom role models.

“I told our Middle School teachers to give me a list of student leaders in their classrooms, whether it was for  negative or  positive reasons,” said Lilly. “If it was for negative leadership, I wanted them in this program to show them what they could accomplish by becoming a positive leader.”

Go to www.heartedtalk.com for more information on Ted Wiese.

Four athletes to join for Hall of Fame

New Richmond High School’s first Division I college players in football and basketball will join two of the school’s all-time greats in softball and swimming in the 2016 class of the New Richmond Lions Sports Hall of Fame.

Thomas Wildey, 1959 graduate who played football at Ohio State; Jeffrey Kuhn, 1962 graduate who played basketball at the University of Cincinnati; Michelle Sweet, 2009 graduate who was a three-sport star in soccer, basketball and softball; and Alex Lewis, 2010 graduate who owns 11 school and league swimming records, will go into the Lions Hall of Fame at the annual induction banquet at 6 p.m. on Jan. 16 in the high school cafeteria.

The Hall of Fame banquet will follow the 4 p.m. Hall of Fame basketball game between the boys varsity against Mariemont. Tickets for the banquets are $15 and available at the high school.

Thomas Wildey, Class of 1959

Whether it was standing his ground against Ohio State coach Woody Hayes or helping bring needed social services to New Richmond, Tom Wildey never backed down from a challenge. When football coaches Dave Bechtel and Robert Tucker were tasked with putting New Richmond High School’s first football team on the field in 1955, one of their first stops was to a hay field in Monroe Township where they saw Tom Wildey and older brother Carl sling heavy hay bales onto a wagon. “These two will do,” they said as they left to scout other future Lions football players. Tom Wildey more than lived up to the young coaches’ expectations and went on to become a four-year, two-way starter at tackle for the Lions, earning all-league honors as a junior and senior before going off to college and making the Ohio State freshman team as a walk on. Hayes tested the mettle of walk on players by using them for tackling practice. Wildey was still standing after 150 hits and make the OSU squad. Wildey got a job in the summer with Cincinnati Gas & Electric, where he worked for 32 years, and never returned to college. Wildey wasn’t just noted for his brawn and was a three-year varsity basketball player for the Lions and ran relays for the track team in addition to throwing the shot and discus. Wildey served for 12 years on the board of the Clermont County Developmental Disabilities and 12 years on the county Planning Commission. He worked for nine years with Clermont County Family and Children First and has been Monroe Township director of services for the past 14 years.

Jeffrey Kuhn, Class of 1962

Jeff Kuhn earned all-star recognition on the basketball court, baseball field and in the classroom for New Richmond during his time in the Eastern Hills League and became New Richmond’s first Division I college basketball player. Jeff was named honorable mention All-league his junior year and after averaging 15 points (including five consecutive games of 20 or more points) and 15 rebounds a game his senior year earning 1^st team all-league honors, Jeff walked on and made the University of Cincinnati freshman team in 1962-63, out of more than 50 players who tried out to join the seven scholarship recruits. UC’s freshman team went undefeated that season, and was widely recognized as the best in the country. Jeff also was a four-year varsity starter in baseball as a pitcher, catcher and infielder for New Richmond. Jeff also excelled in the classroom and was a member of the National Honor Society and served as class vice-president his junior and senior years. Jeff majored in applied mathematics at the University of Cincinnati, and was awarded a Fellowship and two teaching assistantships to pursue graduate studies in applied math while making the academic dean’s list twice. He joined Western and Southern Life Insurance Company in 1967 as an actuarial student following a year of graduate school and remained with the company in full-time or part-time positions through 2014.

Michelle Sweet, Class: 2009

Michelle Sweet was a scholar athlete all four years in three sports at New Richmond. She was named Clermont County Sports Woman of the Year in 2009 as well as VFW Athlete of the Year. She ranks at the top of New Richmond’s record book in softball with a pitching record of 45-11 with more than 369 strikeouts (no records are available for her freshman year). Michelle was a 4-year varsity letter winner in softball as well as a 4-year 1^st team SBAAC All-Star, All-City Honorable Mention from 2007-2009 and a 3-year captain. Her record included a perfect game against Indian Hill in the 2008 sectional tournament. Michelle led the Lady Lions to three Southern Buckeye league titles (2006-08) and a Division II sectional title in 2009 when she pitched a shutout against McNicholas in the title game. Michelle won 16 games her senior year including pitching eight shutouts, a 0.66 ERA and ended No. 1 state ranked Western Brown’s 26-game regular season winning streak with an 11-1 win. She was named New Richmond’s defensive MVP in 2008 and all around MVP in 2009. Michelle was a four-year varsity player in soccer and was team captain her senior season which was cut short by injury. She was also captain of the Lady Lions basketball team her senior year. A National Honor Society member, Michelle graduated 5th in her class in 2009 with a GPA of 4.321. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Ohio Northern University in 2015 with a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree. Michelle was also a member of the Rho Chi (Academic Honor Society in Pharmacy) as well as a member of Northern Without Borders completing a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. She played four years of softball at Ohio Northern and was named to the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) all-tournament team 2011 and OAC Honorable Mention in 2013. She was team captain in 2013 and was named NFCA Scholar Athlete 2011-2013. Her team also made an appearance in the D3 College World Series in 2012 being one of only 8 teams. Her team also made appearances in the Regionals 2010- 2012 and won the OAC the same years. 

Alex Lewis, Class of 2010

A typical holiday visit home for Alex Lewis would be a trip to the pool at the ‘Y where he would swim twenty 500-yard workouts. That dedication and hard work resulted in Alex setting 11 school and league records at New Richmond and receiving a four-year athletic scholarship where he would become a four-year star for DI Cleveland State University where he qualified for the United States Nationals three times. Alex was a 13-time Horizon League champion counting relay events during his four years at Cleveland State and was named the conference’s swimmer of the year and swimmer of the meet in 2014. He was the college’s first swimmer to go under 20 seconds in the 50 Freestyle (19.56). Alex was a 3 time District Qualifier & a District Champion in 2009-10 in the 100 Butterfly. Alex was a two-time Division II state qualifier for New Richmond in both the 100 butterfly and 100 freestyle events, finishing 4^th in the state in the 100 freestyle and 5^th in the 100 butterfly his senior year.  Alex owns individual school and pool records in the 50 freestyle (22.21), 100 freestyle (s-47.09, p-48.37) and 100 butterfly (s-51.07, p-53.93), 200 freestyle (1:49.57) and was on record setting teams in the 200 freestyle (1:37.02), 400 freestyle (3:44.48) and 400 medley relays. He also holds league records in the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle relay. Alex was named team MVP 3-years in a row.  Alex was also instrumental in establishing the NR Alumni Swim Meet held each year. After college, Alex was named head site coach at Xavier University for the Mercy Health Seawolves and produced six Junior Olympic qualifiers in two years. Alex currently is an assistant swim coach at Xavier University.