WARNING:  Beware -- there are websites posing as the Bradford Alumni Association and/or Bradford High School!

Welcome to the OFFICIAL Kenosha Bradford High School Alumni Association, Inc. (KBHSAA) website!  This is the Alumni Association's ONLY endorsed-official website.  Don't be taken in by organizations purporting to have a connection with our alma mater, which have no connection whatsoever to Bradford High School and our local community in Kenosha, WI.  We encourage all alumni to join KBHSAA. 

From left to right:  The Annex (built in 1890, razed in 1980);
Kenosha High School, later renamed in honor of Mary D. Bradford (completed in 1927); and
Mary D. Bradford High School (opened for the 1979-1980 school year).

KBHSAA seeking nominations for 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award

Do you have a classmate who has made outstanding contributions to his/her community and/or served as an excellent role model?  Please take some time today to nominate him/her for the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award.  You'll find more information on our 2021 DAA Nominations web page on how to go about nominating someone for this honor.  Nominations must be postmarked by January 31, 2021. 

We hope you'll join us at the DAA Banquet & Scholarship Fund Silent Auction on Saturday, June 26, 2021 at the Kenosha Country Club.   

KUSD 2020-2021 Theatre Arts Productions:  VIRTUAL!

Updated 12/14/2020:  We usually spotlight the KUSD Theatre Arts productions being staged at Bradford High School in the fall edition of our Newsletter, but as our publication was going to print, there was no information available.   An article in the Kenosha News on November 6 told us all KUSD Theatre Arts productions will be virtual this year due to the COVID-19 virus.  We visited KUSD's Theatre Arts web page and just had to share what we found:

We are the only ones working!

On behalf of the KUSD theatre staff – we want you to really think about this. All across the country regional, professional, and amateur theaters are dark.  Pros at all levels are side hustling because all of the theaters are closed!

You!  Us!  All of us in Educational Theater are carrying the torch, the “ghost light” for an entire industry that has been sidelined due to the virus.

We are making history.  Embrace whatever comes next and be proud.  SO PROUD of your piece in that.  You are doing what no pro in the country is right now.  And they love you for it.  They are on your side, no matter how hard it seems - no matter how weird or non-traditional. 

You are the art!  ON WITH THE SHOW!!!  We’re gonna crush this season!

Today we traded emails with Holly Stanfield, Theatre Arts teacher at Bradford, and she mentioned "KUSD theatre dates may be somewhat fluid this year to accommodate the needs of our students and their families."  We've linked the productions listed below to the KUSD Fine Arts/Theatre Arts webpage entry for the each individual production, which is where you will find the most up-to-date information on the virtual show release dates.        

Radio Show Plays:  It’s a Wonderful Life, December 2020 and
                              War of the Worlds, March 2021 (both at Bradford)
Pippin, January/February 2021 (Bradford)
St. Valentine’s Day, February 2021 (Indian Trail)
Quilters, February/March 2021 (Bradford)
Once On This Island, April 2021 (Bradford)
Disney’s Descendants, April 2021 (Indian Trail)
Urinetown, May 2021 (Bradford)

Tickets for the live stream events may be purchased on the KUSD Theatre Arts web page.  We hope you’ll join us in supporting KUSD Theatre Arts virtual productions for 2020-2021!

We're sending belated birthday wishes to Delbert Smith, Class of 1939, who recently celebrated his 99th birthday, smiling and waving to those who organized a surprise parade past his Florida home.

It's official:  Class Reunion events for 2020 have been cancelled

It's been a difficult year throughout the country due to COVID-19.  All of the Class Reunion Committees that had planned to hold events this year have officially been cancelled, except for Class of 1940 classmates Charles Heide and Marie Pfeiffer Goff who met briefly to reminisce about the Reunions they've attended over the years since graduating from Kenosha High School.  A recap of their reunion will appear in the fall edition of the Newsletter.

Several Reunion Committees have given us a heads up on plans to host a Class Reunion next year... you'll find more information on our Upcoming Class Reunions web page.   So stay tuned, stay in touch and stay safe in the meantime!

Scholarship Donations
Today (08/03/2020) we received a nice note from Anita Herrmann (1954), who made a donation to the KBHSAA Scholarship Fund, directed to the annual Valiere Anderson Petersen (1930) Award for Excellence in Music scholarship.  Thank you for keeping up a strong Alumni group!  

We recently revamped our KBHSAA Scholarships web pages to make it simpler to view our list of 2020 Scholarships Awarded and, on the separate Historical Data:  Scholarships web page, you can look back at scholarship dollars awarded and scholarship recipients over the years going back to 2001.  We hope you'll take a few minutes to browse through these web pages... and then take pride in being a member of the Alumni Association that gives back to its community with a scholarship program for seniors graduating from our alma mater.  Go Bradford! 

Giving the gift of a KBHSAA membership
08/03/2020:  Just in... Tom Brickley (1958) jumped on the bandwagon with a gift membership for his classmate, Laura Vandenberg Bistrick.  Thanks, Tom... and we appreciate your kind email last week about our website!

07/21/2020:  Our thanks to Pat Costigan Hall (1957) for the gift membership given to her classmate, Margaret Doty Bittner.  The enduring friendships made while attending Bradford High School play a role in our "coming of age."  The older we get, it seems the years fly by faster and faster.  The Class of 2020 won't begin to understand that statement for many, many years.  We think you'll agree that celebrating memories shared with classmates keeps us young at heart.  In the years since graduation, we've grown a little older, a little wiser... but we'll always be Red Devils.

Looking Back on 2019-2020
We welcomed two new KBHSAA Board members to our team:  Adela (Lebron) Hessefort, Class of 1974, and Oliver Debe, Class of 2009.  Our 2019 fall edition of the Newsletter requested nominations be submitted for the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award and announced the Scholarship Offerings for 2020.  The KBHSAA Board held its annual holiday gathering at Baker Street in early December, and before we knew it, the month of December had rushed by.  The Board takes the month of January off and met as usual in mid-February, when we were just beginning to hear news reports about the Corona virus in Wuhan, China.

Our lives were going along as usual, and then in mid-March, life as we knew it came to a screeching halt.  We sheltered in place and limited our contact with those outside our immediate family, as part of the WI Governor's "Safer at Home" order, which was meant to help slow the spread of the Corona virus.  Wisconsin schools, public and private, were closed, as were universities.  Businesses throughout the state were closed as well, except for those deemed essential (like grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores and providers of service relative to maintenance on our vehicles and home).  Like many of our friends, we patronized our local "mom and pop" restaurants that remained open for take out or curbside pick up, and we added an extra $5-$10 as a tip when we picked up an order. 

In late April, the KBHSAA Board made the difficult decision to cancel the annual DAA Banquet & Silent Auction. 

KBHSAA extended the deadline for applying for its scholarships into early May.  The Scholarship Committee met via teleconference to discuss the applications they had read through from this year's "crop" for Bradford seniors.  In the end, KBHSAA awarded a total of 15 scholarships with a dollar value total of $23,957.  The seniors and the DAA honorees we did not get to meet at the DAA Banquet this year will be invited guests for next year's event.

Every year, KBHSAA supports publication of the Bradford yearbook with placement of a full page ad.  Our camera-ready 2020 Spy yearbook ad was submitted on May 22, and we share it with you here. 

The For Sale: Spy Yearbooks page has been updated with donations received before the New Year.  The KUSD ESC reopened just this week (June 8th), so if you are interested in purchasing a Spy from our inventory (housed in a locked storage area at the ESC), we are once again able to access them.  

As always, we encourage Bradford classmates to stay in touch via this website and individual Class Websites.

Stay well and stay safe!

Sending Birthday Wishes!
Please join us in wishing a happy 100th birthday to Eileen Osterberg (Molinaro), Class of 1937.  Her son, Max, writes that she received a letter of congratulations from Jim Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia, PA, and was invited to attend the annual Mayor's Centenarian Celebration held in late May 2019.  The annual event recognizes the contributions of Philadelphia residents who have reached their 100th (or later) birthday.

Question for our membership:
Bill Stanley (1947) writes, "The high school name changed from Kenosha HS to Mary D Bradford HS while I was there.  Even after the name change, the letters I received for participation on the Swim Team remained as a "K".  Do you know what year they converted the letters to a "B"?

We're putting the question out to our membership:  please reach out to us via the Contact Us page, letting us know what year you graduated and whether you received a "K" or "B" for lettering in sports.  Thanks in advance for helping answer this inquiry!

Responses have begun arriving:  Roland "Ron" Krumpos (1957), plus Jerry Barr and Tom Brickley (both 1958), report they received a "K" for lettering in their respective sports.  Just in… Lynn Marchesini Kortright (1969) tells us the change to a "B" occurred in 1966. 

On behalf of KBHSAA and Bill Stanley, thanks to all those who took time to help out with this "project"!

Mary D. Bradford Stadium
We were pleased to see the number of donated benches at Mary D. Bradford Stadium has grown this year... it's the perfect place to meet members of your group or to have something to eat before a sporting event.  There is still plenty of space if you would like to order a bench in memory of a loved one or if your Class would like to be represented. The benches are available in black (pictured below) or red.  If interested, please email Adam Sulko, Bradford's Interim Principal (asulko@kusd.edu), for more information.

The KBHSAA bench, installed at Bradford Stadium in September 2016.

Recap:  2019 DAA Banquet & Silent Auction
On Saturday, June 22, Randy Vaccaro (1973), President, welcomed 116 attendees to the annual DAA Banquet & Silent Auction at the Kenosha Country Club.  He introduced the KBHSAA Officers for 2019-2020 and those who serve on the KBHSAA Board, and thanked all of them for their service.  Our Silent Auction saw some bidding wars and when it ended, we raised nearly $2,700 for the KBHSAA Scholarship Fund.  We send Thanks to our Silent Auction Donors whose generosity made the auction possible.

After a delicious meal served by KCC’s attentive wait staff, Joyce Sorensen (1969), Scholarships Chairperson, introduced twelve of the sixteen 2019 Scholarship Recipients to the audience.  We wish them all the best as they set off on their journey in pursuit of a college education.

Alice Schwalbe (1960), Vice President, stepped to the podium to handle introductions for the DAA portion of the event, including recognition of past DAA recipients in attendance.  We were touched by the life stories shared by this year’s Distinguished Alumni Award honorees. 

Michelle Serpe (1967) closed out the event with the traditional Roll Call of Class Years, and Peter Schwalbe (1959) led the audience in singing the Bradford “fight song.”

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