2023 Distinguished Alumni
Five outstanding graduates of Bexley High School have been named as recipients of the 2023 Bexley High School Distinguished Alumni awards. The awardees will be recognized at a special high school student assembly on Monday, November 20th. Congratulations to:
Mary Dunham Auch, ‘91, Regional President of PNC Bank, Central Ohio. Mary began her career with the bank in 1995. Auch is ingrained in the central Ohio community having served as chair of the YMCA of Central Ohio, steering committee co-chair for the United Way of Franklin County Young Leadership Group, and past president of Rebuilding Together Central Ohio (now Modcom Living), a nonprofit dedicated to sustaining homes and communities.
Todd Barkan, internationally known jazz impresario and record producer. Todd managed one of the nation’s legendary jazz clubs, the Keystone Korner in San Francisco for more than a decade. Barkan has produced jazz concerts and records, served as the manager of the Boys Choir of Harlem, and was hired by Wynton Marsalis as Jazz at Lincoln Center’s artistic administrator. In 2018, he received the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship,the highest honor that our nation bestows on jazz artists.
Ellen Klages, '72 is a San Francisco based writer of science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction. She is a nationally recognized and honored writer of middle-grade books. Her first novel, The Green Glass Sea, won the Scott O’Dell Award for children’s historical fiction in 2007. Her adult work, Passing Strange won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 2018. In 2019, her middle-grade book Out of Left Field won the prestigious Children’s History Book Prize and Ohioana Award for Middle Grade/YA Literature. She is a leader in championing science fiction and exploring and expanding the borders of genre fiction.
Stephen Kress, PhD, ‘63, world-renowned ornithologist, the founder of Project Puffin, former Vice President of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society and a Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology Visiting Fellow. Kress founded the Project Puffin 50 years ago with six puffin chicks from Canada. Today there are more than 1,300 puffin pairs nesting in Maine.The seabird restoration techniques that Kress and Project Puffin staff and volunteers established are now used in seabird restoration projects around the world. In 2022, Kress received a lifetime achievement award from the Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Bruce Meyer, MD, ‘57 Administrative Medical Director at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and retired Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Meyer has a distinguished 50+ year career in medicine and in training generations of physicians and spent 40 years as a private practioner on the eastside of Columbus. The Bruce P. Meyer, MD Family Art of Medicine Award at Nationwide Children's Hospital recognizes past or current physicians who exemplify the values of fostering excellence and professionalism in the practice of medicine, as well as providing exceptional patient care beyond being a diagnostician.
