Don Named to High School Alumni Hall of Honor

Don, a graduate of New Trier Township High School, located outside Chicago, was named to the school’s Alumni Hall of Honor. The other honorees for 2024 included:

• Liesel Pritzker Simmons – philanthropist and innovator

• Robert Bryant – inventor

• Tara Purohit Abrahams – advisor and philanthropist

• Sam Barsh – music producer and multi-Grammy winner

• Jerry Fiddler – Founder/CEO Wind River Systems

• Richard Sherman, MD – orthopedic and sports medicine doctor

• Ellen Spertus – computer engineer

Watch the video of Don’s full acceptance speech above, or read his full remarks below.

At this point in my life – noting that I am one of the OG’s granted this wonderful honor – I often find myself talking about the way inspired teaching can define the course and character of a life.  I got to have two careers turning often unlikely ideas into realities, and whether it was writing books and magazine articles people wanted to read, or starting a company from an idea few people believed in, the ability to synthesize cultural, social, psychological and historical insights – along with a level of relentlessness – is key to making ideas real.

My experience of New Trier stoked my fantasies of being a writer.  I had four inspiring and intellectually challenging English teachers: Tommy Tucker, and the Roberts:  Robert Boyle, Robert Pink, and Robert Wilson. 

Robert Wilson opened the year by announcing, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I know you have all produced poetry and heartfelt stories that have been taped to your refrigerators since grade school.  But for my money, only two of the many thousands of students who attended New Trier since founding were substantially creative beings.  They are the poet Archibald MacLeish, and the painter Ivan Albright.  Therefore, I am going to teach you how to conduct primary and secondary research and write an essay … and so he did.

For twenty years I wrote long narrative non-fiction magazine articles and also-long books drawing from years of research using the methodologies I learned in high school.

As for extra-curricular activities, I will never forget blocking five punts in one freshman football game, but just as indelibly I remember Coach Fly, who I also had for Driver’s Ed, extending his left foot from the passenger’s seat over on top of mine, as I too-timidly attempted to navigate my first experience of the on ramp to Eden’s Expressway.  He pushed my foot down, pedal to the proverbial metal, until I hit 65 miles per hour.  One of the two students in the back seat was loudly weeping, while Mr. Fly yelled at me in a Deep South bark I knew from the football field, “Katz - Ah told you to TROMP it!”

But the extra-curricular experiences that marked my becoming in high school, occurred in the streets and clubs of Chicago.  The events of 1968 through 1970 defined my experience of Chicago’s central role in marking the counterculture of those times, the glorious music, the civil rights movement, and the anti-war movement, which led to my cultural, political and moral awakening.  I saw BB King and Buddy Guy and the Paul Butterfield Blues band often, along with ground-breaking shows by rock legends at the Kinetic Playground on North Clark Street whenever I could.  I ditched class to attend marches downtown, and I attended events on the South Side that included Chicago Black Panther leaders later murdered by the local authorities in December of my senior year.

I participated in the New Trier Social Service tutoring program at the Cabrini-Green Homes on the North Side.  That experience of the dehumanizing warehousing of low-income people of color in public housing informed my lifelong study of urban inequities and my efforts to be part of Newark, New Jersey’s comeback story, where Audible – as a stated company purpose – works to unleash the power of giving people a chance.

I can only imagine what my New Trier grad parents – Sid Katz of the class of 1943 and Edith Altheimer of the class of 1947 – would have thought of this moment.  My father’s version of diverting from high school to experience the realities of his life and times was to volunteer to fight in World War II, where he became a decorated war hero. 

I am here tonight with seven fellow New Trier grads from my era, including Jeff Taylor, who tutored me through Junior Algebra; three members of my childhood “second family:” the Ringels – Paul, my closest friend since first grade – Marc, and Susie.  And two of my three New Trier grad sisters - Bobbie Hinden and Marilyn Sawyer.  Both of them have become what our Winnetka grandmother would have called “pillars” of their nearby communities. 

Congratulations to all of my so-impressive fellow inductees – and thank you to all involved with making this personal homecoming happen.