The 2024 Award Ceremony was held on April 17, 2024 in the auditorium of C.W. Baker Baker High School. The 2024 honorees encompass four teachers, two alumni, and one mentor, all who have contributed greatly to Baldwinsville’s cultural wealth.
Cathy Strong
Garrett August Heater
Garrett began whetting this ambition for the world of drama as he performed in musicals at Baker High School, Crazy for You being a favorite. He honed his skills at Syracuse University and Hunter College in New York City, where he was awarded the Vera Mowry Roberts Fellowship. Presently, Garrett teaches Visual Arts and Music in Oswego, New York. In his early career as a teacher in Harlem, he was named a Teacher of Tomorrow by the NYC Department of Education. He is co-founder and artistic director of The Covey Theater Company and producing artistic director of New York City-based Chelsea Opera. An award-winning playwright, he is the recipient of 15 Syracuse Area Live Theater (SALT) awards. His original play, Puccini will make its NYC debut in April, 2024. Three of his plays have been produced at the New York’s International Fringe Festival: Lizzie Borden Took An Axe, Playing God, and Lincoln’s Blood.
Jennifer Scott Miceli, PhD
Jennifer, a Baker High graduate, excelled in Chorus, Band, and Orchestra ensembles. Her experiences at The Hartt School and Eastman School of Music prepared for the following outstanding achievements: Long Island University Professor of Music, Department Chair, Director of Music Education, and recipient of the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching; clinician, lecturer, adjudicator, and guest conductor; Huntington Choral Society, Music Director; Belle Voci Intergenerational Choral Society (501c3), Founding Director; Sound Vocal Jazz, Founding Director, author of Skill Building Sequences for Choral Ensembles (UPA, 2015); as well as domestic and international appearances as a chorister and a flutist.
Jon J. Barden
Jon, who taught Drama, Public Speaking and English at Baker High School for 30 years, began, along with Cindy Smith and Norm Wanzer, the production of musicals at Baker. During his long, 30-year stint in the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild, he both acted in or directed more than 30 productions. Jon was responsible for developing the Baldwinsville Theater Guild scholarship for students at Baker High School. After a short hiatus in retirement, Jon returned to playing a strong role in the productions at Theatre Guild for ten more years.
Richard “Dick” J. Simiele (posthumously)
Richard J. Simiele who taught at Ray Middle School for 26 years, started the middle school musicals program. During this time, he developed 26 one-act musicals, unique to the Baldwinsville community. He produced all of these at no cost to the district, believing that he was gifting both the students and their parents. The shows involved teachers, staff, and parents, as both behind-the-scenes helpers and actors, making it truly a total school community experience. Dick also performed with the Stan Colella and the Mario DeSantis Orchestras for almost 50 years, playing saxophone, clarinet and flute. Before coming to Baldwinsville, he taught instrumental music in the Cato-Meridian School District. Dick also was an adjudicator for the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) for most of his teaching career.
Mike Conway
Mike Conway, an art teacher, taught at Reynolds Elementary in the Baldwinsville School District for 40 years. His dedication to nurturing young artistic minds left a lasting impact on the community. Mike’s legacy extends beyond the classroom. Since his retirement in 2016, he has continued an artistic presence in the area through volunteer projects in the community, the Baldwinsville Library and at St. Augustine’s Church. The murals at the four corners exemplify still more of Mike’s artistry. Mike enjoys teaching adult art classes at Canton Woods Senior Center and substituting in Baldwinsville elementary schools in art, music, physical education, and in the schools’ libraries. Mike still pursues his favorite art areas: illustration and painting. His recent contribution to the community was developing a mural in the children’s section of the Baldwinsville Library depicting the theme of the Erie Canal.
Evelyn (Batchelor) Mercer (1935-2020)
Evelyn received a BS and MS degree in Music Education, summacum laude, from the Crane Department of Music at SUNY Potsdam. After two years as the high school choral teacher in Williamson Central Schools, she took a position as the choral director of Baldwinsville Central School’s new high school in 1959.
While living in Baldwinsville, Evelyn served for many years as the church organist and choir director at Grace Episcopal Church and at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church. She was a frequent rehearsal accompanist and pianist for the Baldwinsville Theater Guild.
Following three years of teaching at the high school, Evelyn established a piano teaching studio in her home and continued to teach piano until 2005. She also accompanied hundreds of students auditioning for Conference All-State as well as some of the most notable professionals in Central New York, including John Oberbrunner and George Coble.
Evelyn dedicated many years of service to the Baldwinsville community. She served as a member of the Baldwinsville School Board for 16 years. She was its Vice-President in 1969-70 and President in 1985-86 and was a devoted advocate for the visual and performing arts programs. She was recognized for her service by receiving the William Krentel Award for outstanding board service by the Onondaga Madison School Boards Assn. Evelyn also served as one of the original members of the Baldwinsville Architectural Review Board. In 1971 she was honored as “Woman of the Year” by the Baldwinsville Volunteer Committee.
Frank Cammuso, the Undergraduate Program Coordinator and Illustration Professor of Practice at Syracuse University, displayed his talent for comics writing when he created his own comics for the Baker High School newspaper called “Balderdash & Ballyhoo.” Later he went on to become an award-winning political cartoonist for the Post Standard newspaper in Syracuse, and his cartoons have been reprinted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and Newsweek.
Frank has authored and illustrated several fiction works, as well; they include these: The Misadventures of Salem Hyde, a graphic novel series for Amulet Books; Knights of the Lunch Table from Graphic/Scholastic; and he also self-published his own graphic novel, Max Hamm Fairy Tale Detective, for which he received an Eisner Nomination. Frank’s fiction and satire have appeared on National Public Radio, in the New Yorker, and in the New York Times. He is also the Chief Creative Officer for AHOY Comics.
Gina Lamparella began demonstrating her talent as a singer and an actress when she played lead roles in Baker High productions of Oklahoma, Fiddler on the Roof, and Hello, Dolly! She continued her education at Syracuse University, and began pursuing her career in New York City, where she played leading roles in Fiddler on the Roof(Tzeitel), Imaginary Friends (Mary’s imaginary friends, Jane Eyre (Blanche Ingram), She also was an understudy for several shows: Caroline, or Change; The Phantom of the Opera; A Little Night Music; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Gypsy, starring Bernadette Peters; Les Miserables.
Gina’s TV appearances include Master of None, All My Children, As the World Turns, and Guiding Light.
In addition to her acting credits, Gina has been busy as a theatre director in international companies. In Italy, she directed Monologhi della Vagina; in New York City My Life as a Professional Pancreas at The Network 2012 One-Act Festival; at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival both.
James Kryshak graduated from Baker High in 2001, having realized several musical successes performing leading roles in Guys and Dolls, Oliver, Secret Garden and Into the Woods. He studied for his Bachelor of Arts at Elmhurst College in Chicago, and then for his Masters Degree in Opera Performance, he studied at the University of Wisconsin, where he received the Distinguished Voice Excellence Fellowship.
As a winner in national auditions for the Metropolitan Opera, James sang on the stage of the Met as a national semi-finalist in February 2009. Many grants and accolades later, he has sung for prestigious opera companies, including Lyric Opera of Chicago, Vienna State Opera, Opera de Lyon, Deutsche Opera Berlin, Teatro Nacional de Sao Carlos, San Francisco Opera Company, Glyndebourne Opera, Birmingham(UK), Wolf Trap Opera, and the Cleveland Symphony and Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
James made his professional debut in 2008 in Mozart’s DON GIOVANNI. His roles are too numerous to mention, but Opera News has hailed his voice as “crystalline,” saying that James is quickly becoming known for his vocal finesse, as well as his stagecraft.
Jay Ashby graduated from Baker High in 1981. We remember him as the lead in THE MUSIC MAN, a performance that gave great promise of a talented musician in the making.
As evidence of his excellence in his field, Jay has won five Grammy awards as a producer, in addition to several nominations for arranging and engineering. He has performed, toured, and recorded with some of the most renowned jazz artists in the industry for the last twenty-five years.
His collaboration with jazz icons such as Paul Simon and Paquito D’Rivera attest to his exceptional talent and his status as one of the most highly-regarded performers and arrangers working in the field today. Jay Ashby is currently the Director of Division of Jazz Studies, and also the Associate Professor of Jazz Studies, Composition, and Trombone at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio.
Norm Wanzer has been a mainstay in the field of music in Baldwinsville since he arrived in 1968, having graduated from the Eastman School of Music. From the time that he began as the band director at Baker High School, then at Ray Middle School and at Durgee Junior high, until his retirement in 2001, Norm has been instrumental in the development of programs that have won both him and the Baldwinsville School District appreciation and recognition.
He was responsible for the creation of the Marching Band as a field band, and then part of the NYS Field Band Conference. He also began the Music Theory and History program at Baker High School, and he was part of the artistic team that restarted the musical theatre at the high school and created the program at the junior high. Each year, beginning in 1969, Mr. Wanzer (“Wanz” to his students), took his bands to the NYSSMA Major Organization Festival for evaluation by musicians. He challenged himself equally by performing regularly in up to six ensembles at a time, playing these instruments: flute (his principal instrument ), clarinet, saxophone, bassoon (his major instrument at Eastman), trombone, euphonium, string bass. He played the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the Onondaga Civic Symphony, and he conducted All County bands and community bands throughout Central New York.
Mr. Wanzer’s retirement concert featured alumni music educators, professional performers, devoted amateurs, and multi-Grammy- winning musicians, all of whom credit him with their inspiration, discipline, and love of music.