Memories from honorees at Gilbert

WINSTED — The Gilbert School held its annual Homecoming Family Day on Saturday, Oct. 10.

At the beginning of the day’s events an alumni cross-country race was held, starting at Van Why Field. Ten alumni from Gilbert participated in the race, which was noncompetitive and just for fun.

The race was co-organized by resident Jim Rollins, who graduated in 1980.

“Running to me was important only if I was chasing a soccer ball,” Rollins said, who admitted he was not part of the track and field team back in high school. “My time at Gilbert was life forming years. Everything came out of what we learned at Gilbert.”

Bill Sesko, who graduated in 1982, said Gilbert got him off to a good start in life.

“I definitely have good feelings in coming back here, which is why we keep organizing this race,” Sesko said. “I think the school is important to Winsted. There has always been an interesting relationship between the town and school. I have always been proud to say that I went to Gilbert. There’s a lot of other regional high schools around here, but I think this is a great asset to Winsted.”

Cindy Fixer, class of 1978, was on hand to organize an alumni volleyball game.

Fixer recently retired as the school’s volleyball coach after 32 years.

“To me, The Gilbert School is always a place where you had opportunities to grow and to learn different things,” Fixer said. “This school has always been family to me, especially with students coming back to become faculty members. It’s a small community and it’s important to me. I started playing volleyball when I was a freshman here and I had no clue about how to play it.”

Distinguished alumni awards

Later in the day the school held its annual distinguished alumni awards which was emceed by Craig Schroeder, W.L. Gilbert Trust member and Gilbert School community liaison.

“Homecoming is a chance for everyone to enjoy their connection with the blue and gold of Gilbert,” Schroeder said before the ceremony. “The Gilbert pride is just exemplified by the four award winners of this year. To me, you have to step away from Gilbert to understand how much you got offered while you were here and how much it influenced your life. That’s what we find out from a lot of our alumni. The alumni tell me that it took awhile in getting away to realize how much their teachers did for them.”

Outstanding Athlete Award

The Outstanding Athlete Award went to Paul Gallo, class of 1985.

During his time at Gilbert Gallo was a three-year letterman who played football, basketball and baseball.

He went on to play four years of baseball at Wesleyan University, earning second All-New England Division 3 in baseball and was a co-recipient of a team Most Valuable Player award.

Gallo went on to coach baseball and women’s basketball at Eastern Connecticut State University, along with coaching baseball at the University of Hartford.

When he moved to California he was hired as a baseball instructor for the HBO movie “61,” playing the role of Red Sox player Tracy Stallard.

Gallo has served as baseball technical advisor for various television shows, videos and commercials.

He currently serves as the baseball coach for the Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California.

When he walked up to the podium, Gallo wore his old Gilbert letterman varsity jacket.

“Growing up in Winsted in the 1970s was a pretty special opportunity for a young boy who liked sports,” Gallo said. “I started in my neighborhood which had 15 families with children of all ages running around. Every fall members of The Gilbert Booster Club would come around with the pins that the pins that they would sell to make money for the football team. That was when I was hooked. Which pin are we going to get this year? What’s the Yellowjacket going to look like? What are we going to wear for football games?”

Gallo said that it was “pretty cool” that he got to go to Gilbert to watch sports.

“To me, Gilbert going up against Northwestern was the same as The Yankees going up against The Red Sox,” he said. “When I was in the seventh grade watching Gilbert play, I was watching my heroes. In the time where there were no video games, playing with the neighborhood kids was all we really had. We were out morning, noon and night playing until we had an argument or the fire horn blew. It was hide and seek, baseball, basketball, whiffle ball and pretty much anything we can do.”

W.L. Gilbert Outstanding Community Service Award

The W.L. Gilbert Outstanding Community Service Award was presented to 1989 graduate Werner Oyanadel.

Oyanadel currently serves as the executive director of the state’s Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in philosophy from Central Connecticut State University.

Oyanadel has served in the state’s Army National Guard and has served on several boards, including the Racial Profiling Prohibition Project.

In 2011 he was awarded the Latino de Oro Award for the field of politics, and in 2014 he was named one of the 50 most influential Latinos in the state by Latinos for Professional Excellence.

“I am truly humbled and excited to receive this recognition today,” Oyanadel said in receiving the award. “My brief but awesome high school career was memorable.”

Oyanadel is an immigrant from Santiago, Chile and attended Gilbert for only his junior and senior years.”

“I still remember quite vividly that when I made the transition to the United States,” Oyanadel said. “Learning English as a second language was a very difficult and traumatic for me. I hated change. The Gilbert School helped to set me on a good path when I came to this country. I will always be grateful because I learned perseverance and persistence. That is a lesson that has always been helpful throughout my life. I have dedicated my career to creating meaningful social change. As an immigrant from Chile, I was brought to this country legally by my parents when Chileans faced the authoritarian military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. I was very young at the time, but I was indirectly impacted by the social unrest affecting Chile. Because of what was happening around me, I always thought that violence was not the answer.”

Distinguished Professional Achievement Award

The Distinguished Professional Achievement Award was presented to Patrick Kilpatrick, who graduated in 1968, has starred in over 125 films and television shows, including “Eraser” with Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Last Man Standing” with Bruce Willis and “The Presidio” with Sean Connery.

This September Kilpatrick received a People’s Choice Award at the Action on Film Festival in Los Angeles.

His memoir “Dying for a Living” is scheduled to be published this year.

“I know some of you in the audience knew me when I was at Gilbert,” Kilpatrick said in accepting the award. “To see me standing here you must be marveling at the redemptive quality of our society.”

The audience laughed at Kilpatrick’s remark as he then proceeded to reflect on his time at the school.

“Going to Gilbert was not only satisfying and rewarding, but to me it was also death defying,” he said. “Ralph Nader talks about the Corvair. I went to school with my mother on icy roads in what was the early manifestation of an SUV, the International Scout, which was a rolling death bomb of hard surfaces and sharp edges. My mother was the girls physical education coach here. I was very fortunate because whenever I would get into trouble, which was very regularly, I would never get suspended. I would just be parked in the office and sooner or later my mother would come waltzing in. For her being the girls phys ed teacher here, a pleasurable side of that was the cheerleaders often wanted to kiss me after football games. That was rewarding.”

Kilpatrick said that he could probably talk about both Gilbert and Hollywood “forever” at the podium, but instead he kept his speech brief.

“This trip [back to Gilbert] has made me whole,” he said. “There are not a lot of students in the audience here today. If there were I would tell them that they are extremely lucky to go to school here. It has served me very well. One of the reasons I have worked so long is being able to write and having a solid education behind me. Gilbert was really fundamental to that for me because I had a rocky scholastic road before I got here.”

Gilbert Heritage Award

Finally, the Gilbert Heritage Award was awarded to William Newman, who graduated in 1950.

Since graduating, Newman has worked extensively as a rocket engineer, working on X-1 and X-2 rockets for Bell.

He also has worked as the Aerospace Propulsion Engineer for the X-15 Space Engine Program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Newman worked as the mission engineer for NASA’s Apollo 11 through 17 and served as a consultant after the Challenger explosion.

“I am humbled by this,” Newman said. “This to me is another personal growth opportunity. I would like to thank The Gilbert Trust for providing the best teachers and educational experience on this earth. My teachers taught me that what you do to one side of the equation you do to the other side of the equation. I want to tell you that saved my butt a number of times in engineering. I was taught about integrity here and integrity is a very important thing in my life. It grew out of coming to Gilbert.”