Four inducted as Clay High School Distinguished Alumni

        Approximately 150 people were on hand Sept. 16 as Clay High School hosted the Distinguished Alumni & Friends and Athletic Hall of Fame Banquet at St. Michael's Centre in Oregon.
        New inductees were honored from both 2020 and 2021, as there was no event held in the fall of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic and a remote learning environment.
        The 2020 Distinguished Alumni inductees included Thomas Phillips (1983) and Tamara Hughes (1976). Sherry Van Camp (1970) and Terri Wamer Hook (1979) where honored as 2021 Distinguished Alumni.
        Judge Jeff Keller (1977, served as guest speaker for the event.
        • Tom Phillips grew up in Oregon. After graduating from Clay, he studied education and exercise science at the University of Toledo. Post-graduation, he volunteered with Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Oregon, and continued to work for Oregon Recreation, where he became a supervisor.
        He completed his student teaching at Eisenhower and earned a bachelor's degree in 1989 after winning a bout with cancer.
        After college, Phillips spent four years as the program director at the Eastern Community YMCA, six years as a wrestling coach at Eisenhower and as a coach at Central Catholic.
        He was also an integral member of Heritage Christian Church, where he served as an elder and a volunteer youth minister for many years.
        In 1996, he joined the Toledo Fire Department, where he became captain at Toledo Station 9. During this time, he also volunteered for the Oregon Fire Department and served as treasurer of Oregon Fire.
        Phillips spent many days in classrooms volunteering to teach fire safety to elementary school children in Oregon and Toledo.
        • After graduating from Clay in 1976, Tammy Hughes attended Bowling Green State University and the University of Toledo. She earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education with a specialization in early childhood education, certified to teach kindergarten. She also has a master’s degree with a specialization in gifted education (K-12).
        Before bringing her expertise to Oregon, she worked at Northwood Middle School; Ottawa County Office of Education servicing Port Clinton, Catawba and Danbury school districts and the Wood County Office of Education servicing North Baltimore, Elmwood and Otsego schools.
        Hughes serves as the coordinator of gifted education in the Oregon City School District, the advanced placement coordinator and the district testing coordinator.
        She founded the Clay High School Academic Booster Club in 1996. She also established the Clay High Alumni & Friends Association in 1996 and led it for 23 years. Among the CHAFA achievements that she spearheaded were creating a database to track Clay graduates; developing a membership database for CHAFA members; presenting $50,000 in scholarships to deserving graduates; enhancement and completion of the Memorial Garden in Memorial Stadium; induction of 36 Distinguished Alumni into the Hall of Fame and the purchase and care of the Eddy and Edna Eagle Mascots. (Edna Eagle broke ground by being the only female mascot at the high school level in 2002.)
        • Sherry Van Camp served as a committee member on CHAFA, where she volunteered for man “fun-raising” activities and contributed her time and talents to raise money for college scholarships for Clay seniors.
        She has volunteered for WTOL-TV’s “Call for Action,” where she worked to find solutions for local problems. She also assisted the director of Art in the Garden, providing guidance with children in East Toledo neighborhoods.
        Van Camp has volunteered at the Oregon Jerusalem Historical Society, often dressing in period costumes. She assisted at several of the society’s teas, served as a docent for museum tours, and undertook the process of data entry of museum financial donations, bringing the process to date.
        With Backpacks for Humans, she collaborates with members of the newly formed Toledo group on a mission to help the less fortunate. She enjoys helping with coordination of clothing and backpacks with essentials for everyday living.
        She has always been the “voice” of the Clay class of 1970, working on many functions with classmates. He has also taken on the responsibility of shared administrator for the CHAFA Facebook page, sharing news and obituaries of Clay alumni.
        VanCamp has a passion for helping people. She has dubbed herself as an uncanny “repurposer,” and is a veritable clearinghouse. Upon hearing of someone in need, she fulfills that need or directs him or her to the proper source.
        • Terri Wamer Hook has been a lifelong advocate for public education, investing her time and talents to ensure that public school students receive an excellent education.
        She also has a passion for supporting her colleagues. She served Oregon City Schools as the first lead teacher for the district and helped develop the District Leadership/Building Leadership Team/Teacher-Based Leadership Team models in the district. In 2010, she assisted in writing the Race to the Top federal grant.
        She has been a critical voice at the state level in the development of the Ohio Resident Educator Program and the Resident Education Summative Assessment. She worked at the state level to ensure that new teachers are effective in working with students and was part of the Ohio panel that presented OREP at a national conference. She serves as OCS’s OREP coordinator and has testified in front of the Ohio legislative branch.
        She supports the growth of veteran teachers and encourages each one to recognize their professional talents through the teacher evaluation process.
        Wamer Hook is a nationally trained Beginning Reading and Reading Comprehension Instructor and a site coordinator for the collaborative graduate-level coursework program used in OCS.
        She has worked as an adjunct professor with Ashland University, instructing the reading comprehension instruction course to district educators.
        She is a state-credentialed Ohio Teacher Evaluation System evaluator and was also a state-approved Praxis III assessor for teachers.
        Wamer Hook earned a Master Teacher designation from the State of Ohio. She is also a Martha Holden Jennings Scholar.
        In 2010, she and her students were filmed and featured in a Japanese television documentary about the Hubble Space Telescope.