ST. MARYS, OH (WLIO) -Â After losing power twice, the lights came back on just in time for the first-ever Rider Talk at the Grand Opera House in downtown St. Marys Saturday evening.
The St. Marys Memorial High School Alumni Association invited three highly accomplished graduates to be interviewed on stage and take questions from community members about their athletic and career achievements. Speaking at the event were Galen Cisco, a former MLB player, Mike Elston, the current defensive coordinator for the Michigan Wolverines, and Floyd Keith, who served as the head football coach at both Howard University and The University of Rhode Island.
Keith then spent over ten years as the Executive Director of the Black Coaches Association and currently works as the Senior Director for Racial and Social Justice at the YWCA of Lafayette, Indiana. He says that the quality of people in St. Marys played a major part in making him who he is today.
"I was the only African American in town that went to school. With that, what I can tell you is that I became the senior class president in my senior year," he said of his time at St. Marys Memorial High School in the 1960s. "So I think that tells you everything that you need to know."
The Alumni Association plans to have more Rider Talks because, with the kind of people that grow up in St. Marys, they will have no shortage of successful individuals to showcase.
"A lot of people in St. Marys have been raised with a very hard work ethic. I think that's something that maybe in some aspects is missing in society. But they know how to work hard, they know how to put their nose to the grindstone and set goals for themselves and put themselves on a course of achieving those goals," said Bill Kellermeyer, President of the St. Marys Memorial High School Alumni Association.
There was also an auction featuring items signed by the speakers at the event, like a World Series baseball bat, baseball cards, and a St. Marys MHS football helmer. Proceeds from the event go towards supporting the school and providing scholarships to current students.
