After hearing me mention Paul Simon, a lady visiting Buzzy’s Country Store noted that she went to the same Forest Hills High School in Queens, New York that Paul and his musical partner Art Garfunkel attended. I commented about being impressed by that and she went on to tell me that Forest Hills had quite a list of notable alumni to include Burt Bacharach, Jerry Springer, Bob Keeshan aka Capt Kangaroo, and the Ramones just to name a few (click here and scroll down for an extended list.)
It caused me to wonder just who my St. Mary’s Ryken High School would list as our notable alums. This was posted in Wiki:
Great Mills High has the following:
Chopticon High School lists the following:
Jerome Adams as Surgeon General is explained. However, regarding Chopticon’s other notable alum, if you click on the James Kilpatrick link as listed, it takes you to the Wiki page for the columnist, political writer and 60 Minutes fella. I don’t think he was an alum of Chopticon.
As for the other Notable Chopticon Alums, Elisa Rae Shupe has a very notable story (click here) and Ljay Newsome is currently a pitcher in the San Francisco Giants’ organization (click here.)
However, it is Charlotte Hall Military Academy that has the most extensive list of Notable Alumni among our past and present high schools. You know all about Stallone having spent some time there back in the day, but did you know that the famous LSD King Owsley Stanley also attended Charlotte Hall? Even Forest Hills can’t top that!
Several other St. Mary’s County high schools such as Banneker, Cardinal Gibbons Institute, Margaret Brent, St. Michaels and St. Mary’s Academy (before it merged with Ryken) must have had some notable alumni too. So I may have to do a followup on all this.
As my lady visitor to Buzzy’s pointed out to me, Paul Simon actually referred to their high school in one of his songs. Listen for it at the very beginning here: