Historian, Scholar

From her first days at Scarsdale High School, Liz Cohen was marked as a student of nearly limitless potential.   Prior to her senior year, she was selected an AFS student to Japan. In 1973, Cohen was admitted to Princeton University in the cohort of women who were the first to be enrolled there.  At Princeton she majored in History.  Her senior paper was entitled Beneath Cotton and Lace: the Plantation Legacy of the Southern Woman. 

Former Step Student, Educator, Foundation Officer, Advisor to Gates Foundation

Queen Booker grew up poor in the poorest county in the poorest state in the Union.  She had nine brothers and sisters.  All lived with their parents on a farm.  They eked out a living, a sharecropper’s existence in a world they couldn’t control. 

MEDIA EXECUTIVE

Tom Rogers is one of the most powerful media and business executives in the world.
His nomination for Distinguished Alumnus by Irving Sloan and the friendship between the two men speaks volumes. From the beginning Rogers, whose father graduated from Scarsdale High School in 1943, was a leader. He understood what made SHS tick and in 1972 was elected President of his class. I don’t know whether Rogers is proud of this moment in his administration or not, but the entertainment for his senior prom was Chubby Checker.

LAWYER, JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

“Heard memories are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter,
Therefore ye soft pipes, play on.. . .” So spoke Debbie Smolover in her Bandy quote.

Debbie had a beautiful voice, but often left it unheard. So, too, with her raw power. She was a very good student in a regular American History class and she applied to Harvard. Somehow in her application her human qualities caught the attention of the Harvard Admissions people. They took her ahead of some all AP students

SCIENTIST

Not everyone gets an asteroid named in his honor (99905 Jeffgrossman). But then again not everyone is on a career path in which each stage is success followed by a new stage with even greater successes. Perhaps the explanation lies in his family. Grossman’s parents, Eddie and Selma, were brilliant teachers. His love of learning may have been born in his home on Black Birch Late. His sister reports that as a boy he memorized the northern hemisphere of stars in the sky by putting them on a series of index cards.

JAZZ CLARINETIST AND SAXOPHONIST

I first came across Bob Wilber’s name in some research I was doing on Scarsdale in World War II. As a teenager, Wilber and the rest of his Scarsdale High School
band, the Wildcats, visited hospitals in New York to entertain soldiers injured during the war. He was excellent even then, taking the train to Harlem so he could learn from jazz great Sidney Bechet. From those distant days in the 1940’s until today Wilber has fought the good fight to keep jazz alive.

URBAN MANAGEMENT PIONEER

Dan Biederman is this generation's Frederick Law Olmsted. Perhaps more than any other New Yorker, Biederman has changed the face of Manhattan. A magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University and an MBA with distinction from Harvard, Biederman took on the seemingly impossible task of erasing graffiti, ending crime, and bringing New Yorkers and New York visitors back to the parks. He co-founded Bryant Park Corporation in 1980. His efforts there reversed the decay that marred New York City in the 1970's. Today the Bryant Park Corporation is the largest effort in the United States to provide private management with public funds for its parks.

Journalist—writer Sunday New York Times Magazine
Author of  ten books including City on a Hill on CCNY and Best Intentions on Kofi Annen.  For years Jim  has participated in Writing Day at the Middle School.  His Bandy quote did not help him get a job at the Times. 
“Love is the botulism in the cold Vichyssoise of life.” 

Playwright.
A decade ago when Dan O’Brien was asked for a word of wisdom by the staff of the Bandersnatch,  Dan responded, “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.”  Imagination he must have in spades winning the Osborn  Award presented by the  American Theatre Critics, the  Mark Twain Comedy Writing Award, and a play “The Dear Boy,” based in large part on a veteran Scarsdale High School teacher.

 Journalist,  Assistant Managing Editor of the New York Times. Glenn has been overseeing major reporting projects for more than a decade. Reporters working under his editing supervision have won eight Pulitzer Prizes, and have been finalists for the Pulitzer 22 times.