MLC's First High School Graduation

THESE 12 PHOTOS offer rare glimpses of the MLC student and adult communities in our heady inaugural year. Thirty or forty people gather in someone's home to celebrate MLC's first class of high school graduates—who'd just finished spending this one single year, their last before launch, plunged into MLC's educational experiment.

There are mysteries! Who out there remembers any details of the event ????

Several unidentified adults and students appear, along with teachers Emil, Ehrick, Abe, and Sally, resident scholar Manny Bernstein, Betty's husband Bill Mayther, parent Belle Canon, and aide Glenn Swift.

In preparing for History Night in October 2025, parent and organizer Alisa Welch found the photos in a small yellow plastic case, among collections Emil had left and passed along through his and Helen's children, alumni Lisa and Karl.

Alisa posted the main group photo, presumably featuring the graduates, on Facebook, prompting a spirited discussion of who was who. She later uncovered the October 1968 memo shown here, listing those who would graduate the following June. Seven students are in both the photo and the memo, three are only in the former, and two are only in the latter; at least one seems to have disappeared from both. Mysteries!

Before History Night, alumni worked together on Facebook to identify the students in this one posed photo of MLC's first class of graduating seniors:

1. Steve Haight, 2. Gillian (Lanny) Hughes, 3. Doug Howell, 4. Katy Izquierdo, 5. Geoff Seaman, 6. Mark McGrath, 7. Janice Stephenson, 8. Tad Savinar, 9. Barry Dragoon, 10. Nancy Woodruff.

Foreground, seated: the graduates (see keyed photo below); background, standing: unidentified, Manny Bernstein, unidentified, Ehrick Wheeler.

Unidentified (back turned), unidentified, Abe Bialostosky.

Belle Canon, Emil Abramovic, Ehrick Wheeler.

Steve Haight, Doug Howell, Nancy Woodruff, Lanny Hughes.

Doug Howell, Chris Haight, Lanny Hughes, Mark McGrath, unidentified, Steve Haight.

The graduates; parent Belle Canon.

Nancy Woodruff.

Doug Howell and unidentified official-looking guest.

October 15 1968 memo from principal Amasa Gilman to PPS Director Tillman Peterson, identifying expected Spring 1969 MLC graduates. Dave Scharf and Deborah Peterson are not in the photos; Lanny Hughes, Geoff Seaman, and Janice Stephenson are not in the memo; Sam Lowry (different from this website's interim webmaster), who'd come to MLC from Cleveland as a senior and is believed to have graduated, is in neither.

Background: Abe Bialostosky, Bill Mayther, unidentified, Manny Bernstein, unidentified; foreground: unidentified, Sally Svitavsky, Glenn Swift.

Unidentified (left) with Chris Haight (back turned) and grads.

The photos as found.

The graduates (see keyed photo); unidentified, Manny, and Ehrick.