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WARREN -- The Warren City Schools Foundation directors and the Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame committee will induct seven new members into the Class of 2023.
The 31st annual Awards Dinner on May 6 will take place at Warren G. Harding High School, 860 Elm Road.
Tours of the high school and a social hour will begin at 5 p.m. Dinner, catered by Saratoga Restaurant & Catering, will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 per person and can be obtained by calling 330-841-2321, Ext. 7136, or by downloading a reservation form from the Warren City Schools website at www.warrencityschools.org by April 21.
The award honors those who, through their performance and achievements, reflect credit on the Warren high schools present and past (Warren High School, Warren G. Harding and Warren Western Reserve), so that today's students may find inspiration and establish goals for the future.
The alumni HOF committee and the Warren City Schools Foundation Board of Directors also will honor a distinguished faculty member. Each year, the board of directors requests that each inductee name the educators who influenced and inspired their success. The 2023 recipient is Beverly A. Barile, who worked for Warren City Schools for 16 years teaching English at West Junior High School, Warren G. Harding High School and Harry B. Turner Seventh Grade School.
This year's Hall of Fame inductees are:
• Shawn Cupples (WGH Class of 1983) -- After graduating from Warren G. Harding in 1983, Cupples attended Thiel College where he was a four-year letterman on the football team, member of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity, and served in the Marine Corps Reserve. After earning a degree in accounting and business administration, he accepted a position at Deloitte Touche in the audit and assurance department working as a certified public accountant. In 1994 he accepted a finance position with General Nutrition Corp. and was transferred to the United Kingdom. In 2001, he returned to the United States and worked with GNC in various roles. He resides in Scottsdale, Arizona and is the financial controller for Paddy O' Furniture. He has been involved with several charitable and social justice organizations including the Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the Keystone Progress Education Fund.
• Kenneth Davis (WGH Class of 2004) -- Davis is father to Ethan, 6, and Kennedy Davis, 4, and husband to Brittney Davis. Davis is owner of Grow Pro Genetics LLC and account manager at Syngenta Seed, KWS Cereals USA and Bayer Crop Science. He graduated from The Ohio State University, agribusiness and applied economics with a bachelor's degree and received his Master's degree from Iowa State University, Seed Science and Technology. Davis is a YMCA youth sports coach and Morning Star Baptist Church Men's Ministry Leader during his free time. He is a recipient of The Ohio State University CFAES Young Professional Award.
• Attorney Stanley A. Elkins (WWR Class of 1977) -- Elkins attended Defiance College and graduated with a degree in both criminal justice and psychology. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Akron, School of Law in 1984. Elkins was admitted to practice law in Ohio in May 1985. He has served as a prosecutor for Warren and Trumbull County. Elkins serves as chief prosecutor of the juvenile division of the Trumbull County Prosecutor's Office. Elkins has been a member of Second Baptist Church for more than 50 years, where he is an usher and trustee.
• Joseph Kotwis (WGH Class of 1984) -- Kotwis attended Clemson University and graduated in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. After two years with International Paper in South Carolina, he enrolled at North Carolina State and earned a master's degree in management, graduating in 1992, while designing part-time in Research Triangle Park. Kotwis married and moved to Iowa in 1992 for a 31-year career with DuPont. He transferred to West Virginia in 2000 and then to Ohio in 2006. He consulted across most films and laminates businesses in DuPont as well as external cell phone and aerospace customers. He was promoted to technology fellow in 2018 and retired in 2023, to pursue a manufacturing engineering consulting business.
• Wendy Marvin (WGH 1980) -- Marvin was born in Kimbrough Army Hospital in Fort Meade, Maryland. She arrived in Warren at just 3 days old. Her mother always told her this was the beginning of her wanderlust. Attending Laird Avenue Elementary, East Junior High and Warren G. Harding High School, Marvin went on to attend Kent State University where she spent eight years dabbling in this and that. She eventually became a medical assistant and never spent a day working in the field because working at the Trumbull YMCA not-for-profit sector, while going to school, was a job she loved. Marvin spent 34 years there before deciding to leave and move abroad. She received a teaching certification from the University of Miami of Florida for teaching English as a foreign language and this was the start of her life abroad, first moving to Paris, France, followed by China, Bali and her current home, Warsaw, Poland. It has afforded her the opportunity to travel to 42 countries and she never looked back.
• Jill Christein-Merolla (WGH Class of 1983) -- Christein-Merolla completed her bachelor's degree in education in 1987 and her master's degree in education administration in 1992, both from Youngstown State University. In 1987, she joined the Warren City Schools as an elementary teacher at McKinley, Horace Mann, Roosevelt and Dickey Avenue schools. She was awarded the A-Plus Teacher Award by the Tribune Chronicle in 1992. In 1997, she advanced into administration as a middle school principal at Turner, and an elementary principal at Secrest, McGuffey K-4 and McGuffey K-2 at the Emerson Building. In 2010, she transitioned to central office leadership as supervisor of community outreach and grant development where she led two major national initiatives: Collaborative for Academic Social Emotional Learning; and worked collaboratively with Students Motivated by the Arts to make Warren City Schools an Any Given Child school district, one of 25 with the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center in Washington, D.C.
• Kirk Stiffler, MD, MPH (WWR Class of 1988) -- Dr. Stiffler enrolled in the combined BS / MD program at the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine, earning his bachelor's degree at Kent State University and graduating NEOUCOM (now known as NEOMED) in 1994. The following three years were spent in the emergency medicine residency program at Summa Health System in Akron. Afterward, he joined Summa Health System as an attending emergency medicine physician at the training program. He was awarded teacher of the year by the residents in 1999; soon began to perform clinical research; and eventually served as director of clinical research for emergency medicine. During much of that time, he also chaired the institutional review board, ensuring patient safety for those participating in clinical research trials at the institution. He completed his masters of public health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was promoted to professor of emergency medicine at NEOMED, and has published multiple peer reviewed research papers. After nearly two decades at Summa Health System, Stiffler accepted a new role as director of emergency medicine at University Hospitals Ahuja Medical system in Beachwood, during the late summer of 2017. In 2020, he was instrumental in helping Ahuja's emergency department navigate the coronavirus pandemic. He has served as the chairman of Ahuja's department of medicine, and is serving as the president of the medical staff. Throughout his career, Dr. Stiffler has supported philanthropic organizations and is a dedicated father, son and husband.