2010 Fundraising Breakfast Planning Already Underway

Alumni, educators, community members, current students and parents will all came together in force on Friday, May 7, 2010 to show support for the revitalization of Manual High School. Don’t miss out!

Co-chaired by Buffy Naake (Manual ’85), and City Councilman Michael Hancock (Manual, ’87), this year’s program will feature accomplished author and 1976 Manual alum Ted Conover, author of non-fiction works that study unique subcultures. His books include: Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes; Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders with America's Illegal Migrants; Whiteout: Lost In Aspen; Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing; and The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today. For each book, Ted lived the lives of the people he was documenting.

We hope to see you on May 7 in the Manual Thunderdome from 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. as we honor the accomplishments of current students, come together to support the challenges facing the school, and share in some good old fashioned Thunderbolt Spirit.   To get involved as a Host Committee member, table captain, or to learn more about other volunteer opportunities, please contact us at friends_of_manual@msn.com or to make a donation, visit the donation page. 

To make your reservation online (no charge to attend) click here.

Download the 2010 Breakfast invitation

Thank you to our breakfast sponsors!

 

Friends of Manual Creates an Impact with Faculty Grant Program

During the 2008-2009 school year, Friends of Manual has made available $12,000 to faculty through its very own Faculty Grant Program. This program is designed to give faculty opportunities to augment classroom resources and academic experiences for students, and to offer a diverse array of extracurricular classes or sports. Friends of Manual is proud to support several programs including sponsoring a team of students training to run the Bolder Boulder race, a ski trip to Winter Park for 40 students and adult chaperones, female and male fitness programs, and support for the JROTC program. We have also been able to revive the drama program and through a generous gift from the McHugh family (Burke and Chris are 1980s alumni), the proud tradition of vocal music is being restored to the school.

Make a donation to support this vital support for faculty! To make a contribution to this important service for Manual faculty, please click here.

 

Meet our Breakfast Keynote Speaker: Ted Conover

Ted Conover is  an innovative author and journalist. Conover's books of narrative nonfiction have typically been enterprising explorations of off-beat social worlds by melding anthropology and journalism. This includes riding railroads back and forth across the western United States with some of the last remaining hobos, traveling for a year with Mexican migrants and illegals which included multiple border crossings, and working such diverse jobs as a driver for the Mellow Yellow Taxi Company, and as a journalist for the Aspen Times.

His most acclaimed project was to take a job at Sing Sing prison in New York state, where he worked for nearly a year—without the state's knowledge—as a rookie correction officer. The resulting book, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, was finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction, among other honors.

His newest book is called The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today due for publication in February 2010 and which explores six of these key byways worldwide. These include in Peru, East Africa, the West Bank, Ladakh India, China and Lagos, Nigeria.

In addition to books, much of Conover's work has been published in magazines. He frequently contributes to the The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic Magazine, Travel & Leisure Family, and others.

A graduate of Manual High School (1976) and Amherst College, he is a Marshall Scholar and a distinguished writer-in-residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University. He teaches graduate courses in the Literary Reportage program and an undergraduate course on journalism and ethnography.

 

Manual Alumni in the News

Christian Cook (Manual ’94)

Not many professional athletes attempt to switch sports after a hall of fame career, but that's exactly what Christian Cook attempted to do in 2009. While practicing for the Lacrosse World Team, Cook put on a private workout for several NFL scouts prior to the April 2009 NFL Draft. The feedback was so positive he decided to enter his name in with a list of over a thousand eligible college football players. Although he wasn't drafted, he remains in touch with several NFL organizations.  This followed an 8 year professional lacrosse career in which he was drafted in the second round of the inaugural Major League Lacrosse (MLL), was a two-time all-star and 2002 MLL Defensive Player of the Year. He won a MLL Championship with the Washington Bayhawks in 2005. Christian is the only known Manual alum to be inducted in the Colorado Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

 

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