1970s
Barry A. Franklin, BS ’70, PhD, West Bloomfield, MI, director of preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation at Beaumont Health, Royal Oak, Michigan, was recognized as a “Pillar of Vibrancy: Wellness” by the Bates Street Society in September 2021. (The society also recognizes Pillars of Vibrancy in Business, Education, Culture and Philanthropy.) The Bates Street Society recognizes donors who make significant charitable contributions to support the work of The Community House in Birmingham, Michigan.
Franklin’s interests combine exercise physiology with cardiology. As a secondary pursuit, he has studied highly successful people in all walks of life, using the methodologies of a research scientist (his academic training). He developed a college course GPS for Success, which he taught at Central Michigan University (2012-2017). He has spoken widely on this topic since the mid-1990s and has given success-related commencement addresses at major universities. He is currently writing his 27th book, GPS for Success: Behavioral Skills, Strategies, and Secrets of Superachievers.
Michael Chanak Jr., BS ’71, Cincinnati, OH, a retiree of Procter & Gamble who was featured in a recent diversity film, The Words Matter, was asked to join the board of the Ohio Lesbian Archives, which maintains and preserves LGBTQ+ history. He and Phebe Beiser (co-founder and president of the OLA) recently spoke to the Duke Energy diversity group. The Duke Energy Foundation gave a $200 grant to the OLA.
OLA is one of the few nonprofit national archives serving not just the LGBTQ+ community, but students, researchers and anyone with an interest in history. For more information, see https://ohiolesbianarchives.wordpress.com.
Chanak was also featured in a Points of Pride news report on WCPO 9 in June 2021—35 years after WCPO-TV cameras caught him in a friendly kiss at a Pride event in 1986, which pushed Chanak into the open.
Dominic A. DiMarco, BBA ’73, Bloomfield Hills, MI, retired president/CEO of Cranbrook Educational Community, was recognized as a “Pillar of Vibrancy: Education” by the Bates Street Society in September 2021. (The society also recognizes Pillars of Vibrancy in Business, Culture, Philanthropy and Wellness.) The Bates Street Society recognizes donors who support the work of The Community House in Birmingham, Michigan.
Following a successful 35-year career with Ford Motor Co., DiMarco started at Cranbrook in 2008 as its COO, became its eighth president in 2012 and retired in June 2020. During his tenure, Cranbrook opened an “exploreLAB” at the Cranbrook Institute of Science and an Art Lab at the Cranbrook Art Museum, launched Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, implemented free admission to Cranbrook Gardens, began a partnership with MIT, secured multiple major gifts, completed capital projects, and outlined a master plan that will continue to extend Cranbrook’s legacy as a leading center for education, art and science.
View Cranbrook Schools Honors Dominic DiMarco.
Stephanie Rushin Patrick, MEd ’74, Canton, OH, was honored by Canton City Schools with the renaming of Allen Elementary School as Stephanie Rushin Patrick Elementary. The district dedicated the school in her honor at a ceremony in spring 2021. Patrick had attended Allen Elementary as a child and was a principal at the school for 24 years. She introduced many of the after-school activities and cultural celebrations the school still enjoys. She hired and mentored many of the teachers, started the Leila Green Alliance of Black School Educators and serves as the chairperson of the longest Martin Luther King Jr. community celebration in Ohio.
She became principal at Hartford Middle School in 2004 and retired in 2008, but in 2010 became a substitute principal and classroom teacher. In 2021, she has served as a core substitute at Lehman Middle School. Patrick has amassed more than 25 awards and recognitions for her dedication to education and the community, including the Ohio State Educators Award, the Ohio Humanitarian Award and Kent State’s EHHS 2020 Hall of Fame Diversity Alumni Award.
Roseann “Chic” Canfora, BS ’76, MA ’87, PhD ’01, Aurora, OH, May 4 activist, joined Kent State’s College of Communication and Information as professional-in-residence in the School of Media and Journalism in fall 2021.
She is an eyewitness and survivor of the shootings at Kent State, where the Ohio National Guard killed four and wounded nine students, including her brother, Alan, on May 4, 1970. A “Kent 25” defendant, she was indicted by an Ohio grand jury, and later exonerated, for activism during a weekend of protests against the invasion of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. She has been a regular contributor and speaker at May 4 Commemoration events and is a member of the May 4 Presidential Advisory Committee.
Canfora has served for a decade as the chief communications officer for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and has taught high school journalism for more than 20 years. She has taught as an adjunct in Kent State’s School of Media and Journalism since 2006.
She has received the Kent State Alumni Leadership Award, and Ms. magazine has recognized her as one of 100 Women of the Century in its millennium issue. She is a stalwart advocate for May 4 remembrance and for the importance of connecting the lessons of the anti-war movement to emerging movements today, including Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives.
This fall Canfora is teaching two courses: Media, Power and Culture, and Ethics and Issues in Mass Communication. As a professional-in-residence, she will also work with the Office of the President and the May 4 Presidential Advisory Committee to plan the May 4 Commemoration and develop future May 4 initiatives. In 2019, the Kent State University Board of Trustees affirmed a commitment from the president’s office to hold the annual May 4 Commemoration as a university-level event and to preserve the important traditions established over the years.
Stephen Cormany, BA ’77, Astoria, NY, wrote: “I recently wrote an account of my witness as a 19-year-old freshman to the Kent State killings of May 4, 1970, and the years after—including difficulties finishing college, the desire to be a writer and emotional problems. I eventually graduated from Kent State in 1977, earned an MA in English from Ohio University in 1987 and a PhD in English from Penn State in 1993. I taught first-year composition and basic writing for 25 years in several universities, including Penn State, Temple and the CUNY Community Colleges.
“My memoir, A Common Survival: My Story of Kent State and After, is now fully archived and catalogued in a PDF with Academia.edu and can be accessed at no cost from https://www.academia.edu/50810375.”
Cormany’s memoir also has been accepted into the Research Papers, Theses, Dissertations and Manuscripts Related to May 4 collection at Kent State Universities Libraries, Special Collections and Archives, https://www.library.kent.edu/miscellaneous-research-papers-theses-and-m…. It is digitized and available in the Kent State Shootings Digital Archive at https://omeka.library.kent.edu/special-collections/items/show/8477.
Thomas Matijasic, MA ’78, Hagerhill, KY, discussed conflicting interpretations of Americans’ collective heritage in a guest column for The State Journal, a Frankfort, Kentucky, newspaper in June 2021. He received a doctorate in history in 1982 from Miami University of Ohio and has taught history at Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg, Kentucky, since 1983.
David Lucht, BS ’79, MBA ’84, Wilmington, NC, was appointed to the board of directors of Live Oak Bancshares (a financial holding company and parent company of Live Oak Bank) and of Live Oak Bank in February 2021.
Lucht is a founding member of the Live Oak Bank team and most recently served as executive vice president of credit. He retired in December 2020. He joined Live Oak in 2007 and helped design the bank’s approach to identifying and managing credit risk. He also helped shape the corporate culture of the company since its inception.
Prior to his career at Live Oak, he served as chief credit officer, executive vice president and director at the $10.5 billion First Merit Bank in Akron, Ohio, where he led a turnaround in credit culture and performance. Prior to First Merit, Lucht served as senior credit officer of National City Bank.
Larry Rudawsky, BA ’79, Trenton, MI, has been hired as senior counsel at Barrett McNagny LLP, a law firm that serves clients in northern Indiana, western Ohio and southern Michigan. He had served as an attorney for a New York City firm and as vice president for a multistate trust company. He has a JD from Case Western Reserve University.