The Oconomowoc Area School District (OASD) and Oconomowoc High School (OHS) are excited to announce the recipients of the 2020 and 2021 Wall of Fame Award. The OHS Wall of Fame was created in 2006 to recognize graduates who have made a significant contribution to mankind and who inspire our current OHS students to achieve their goals after leaving high school.
OHS 2020 Wall of Fame Recipient, Ms. Jacki Lyden
The 2020 OHS Wall of Fame Recipient is Ms. Jacki Lyden, a 1971 graduate of Oconomowoc High School. Lyden is a native of Wisconsin, a champion of environmental causes, and best-selling author.
From 1979 through 2014, Lyden was a foreign correspondent, staff host, and essayist for National Public Radio (NPR). Her journalism has taken her around the world including Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and Northern Ireland. In 2001, she won The Gracie Award for Best Foreign Documentary (Loss and Its Aftermath: Palestinian and Israeli Children, 2001, NPR). Along with her NPR team, she also won the DuPont-Columbia, the Polk, and George Foster Peabody Awards for coverage of the first Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the second Gulf War.
She is the author of the national bestseller, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba (1997), which the New York Times called "a memoir classic." In 2017-2018, she was a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism and currently serves as a board member of the Cheuse International Writing Center at George Mason University.
Lyden is a 1975 graduate of Valparaiso University and its Christ College for Scholars, along with its program at Cambridge University, England. She received an honorary PhD from Valparaiso and was a 1991-92 Benton Fellow at the University of Chicago.
You can learn more about Jacki on her website, https://jackilyden.com, or follow her on Twitter @jackilyden.
OHS 2021 Wall of Fame Recipient, Mr. Sean McCollum
The 2021 OHS Wall of Fame Recipient is Mr. Sean McCollum, a 1981 graduate of Oconomowoc High School. McCollum is a Midwesterner who has roots in South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Both of McCollum's parents were teachers, his father Don having taught in the Oconomowoc Area School District at Ashippun, Meadow View, and Ixonia Elementary Schools.
For the past 30 years, McCollum has worked in children's and educational publishing, having published over 50 books and hundreds of magazine and online articles. He is an adventurer, traveling the world and writing as he goes, seeing more than 60 countries. Sean is a 1985 graduate of Lawrence University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He began his writing career in 1992 in New York City as an assistant/associate editor at Scholastic News. From 1992-2020, Sean was a freelance writer and editor, sharing his works on his website, kidfreelance.com. Currently, McCollum is involved with writing projects for Capstone, Reading A-Z, and ArtsEdge, the Kennedy Center's educational arm.
Some of McCollum's award-winning works include:
- We CAN'T Go Outside!, First-Place, Katherine Paterson Prize, Picture Book
- Drain on the Brain, Mother's Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Media Award Winner, 2007
- Theodore Roosevelt: America's 26th President, Winner of the Colorado Authors' League Award for Children's Nonfiction, 2005
- Kenya, CBC/NCSS Selection for Notable Social Studies Books for Young People, 2000
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Photos:
Jacki Lyden, OHS 2020 Wall of Fame Award Recipient
Sean McCollum, OHS 2021 Wall of Fame Award Recipient