by David Rutherford
John Muir Alumni Association
An author, a producer, a journalist, a Tournament of Roses Association board member, a police commander and a recently retired track-and-field coach have been selected for induction to the John Muir High School Hall of Fame.
A ceremony honoring the inductees will be held on campus at 3 PM Saturday,Nov. 12, at Rufus Mead Auditorium, 1905 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena.
Long-time former security guard Nettie Piggee, who worked at Muir for 35years (1974-2009), also will be honored as the latest recipient of the annual Jim Brownfield Service Award, named in honor of the late legendary football coach.
Newly elected to the Hall are:
- Andre Coleman of Altadena (’82, Writing);
- Gerald Freeny of Altadena (’78, Community Service);
- Carol Miller Cassell, Ph.D., of Albuquerque, N.M. (John Muir College Class of 1953, in the category of Science);
- Don Strametz of Stevenson Ranch (’63, Sports and Coaching);
- Deputy Chief Darryl Qualls of Pasadena (’80, Government Service); and
- Mamie Coleman of Beverly Hills (’89, Business)
Andre Coleman has been a staff writer for various newspapers in the Pasadena and Los Angeles areas for 20 years. He has served the Pasadena area with his careful, hard-hitting, no-nonsense, journalism. He received two Los Angeles Press Club awards for a story he wrote that became the basis for the movie "Lake View Terrace." His second award was given for the article, "Body of Evidence," about a missing Pasadena police officer whose case was first ruled a suicide and later a homicide. Coleman has also written several books.
Freeny holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance from Cal State L.A. He has been employed by the State of California Department of Corrections for over 20 years. Freeny has served on the Tournament of Roses board for 23 years and is scheduled to serve as the Tournament’s first African-American chairman of the board in 2019. His previous community involvement includes the Pasadena Police Foundation Board, Pasadena Police Citizens Academy, Pasadena Rose Bowl Aquatics Board, the University Club, Pasadena YMCA Board, Black Support Group at Cal State LA, Urban League Board of Governors, United Way Fundraising Committee and the Pasadena NAACP.
Dr. Cassell has written several books that have been excerpted in American and Canadian newspapers and magazines, including USA Today, Psychology Today and the Journal of Sex Research. Her books - Swept Away: Why Women Confuse Love and Sex; Tender Bargaining: Negotiating an Equal Partnership with the Man You Love; and Straight From the Heart: How to Talk to your Teenager about Love and Sex – have been published in four languages. She is currently the president of the Western Region for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality
Strametz, who retired last June as Director of Track and Field at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), was a standout athlete at Muir in the early 1960s, lettering in track and football. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from California State University, Los Angeles in 1968. The next year he began his teaching career at Locke High School in Los Angeles, where he was the boys’ track coach from 1974-1979. He was named 1979 Coach of the Year after leading the Saints to a city championship in 1979 and a second-place finish in the state championship. He also led Locke’s girls’ track team to a state championship in 1977. He left Locke to serve as a teacher at Mount Vernon Junior High in Los Angeles and as an associate professor at CSUN, both from 1979-1985. He has headed the men’s and women’s Matador outdoor track-and-field and cross-country teams since 1985, and the men’s and women’s indoor track-and-field teams since 1992. Since becoming an NCAA Division I team in 1991, Strametz’s CSUN teams have won 19 conference championships and produced 65 Academic All-Conference student athletes.
Deputy Chief Qualls oversees the Pasadena Police Department’s officers within Patrol Services. He began his career with the Department as an Explorer Scout at age 18, rose through the ranks of cadet, police officer, investigator, sergeant, lieutenant and, in 2008, his current position as commander. He has worked with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He has also received training with the Israeli National Police on terrorism.
As Vice President of Music and Production, Mamie Coleman is responsible for managing the creation and production of the promotional campaigns for Fox Broadcasting’s television series, specials and live event programming. She works closely with the TV studios and production companies, major record labels, recording artists, and agents to secure talent and production materials for Fox's award-winning on-air promotional campaigns. She became the first president and founding member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., Rho Epsilon Chapter.
Piggee (referred to as Miss Nettie by a generation of students) was a fixture at Muir, with a high, raspy voice that soared forcefully from one end of the school's campus to the other (even penetrating concrete walls, according to stage manager Larry Tharp), Piggee was as definitive of Muir as the revered "M-Quad" and the aqua-tiled arches of the Rufus Mead Auditorium. Officially, she was there to protect the school from intruders and to quell conflicts between students, but co-workers said Piggee was much more than a campus cop. “There will never be another Nettie Piggee,” said Chuck Malouf, a retired Pasadena Unified School District teacher who was at Muir for 31 of Piggee’s 35 years there until his retirement in 2005. “She is a living example of tough love. She lived close to campus, was a colleague to all of the staff and was known not only by all of the students but many of their parents and grandparents.”
Since 2004, the John Muir High School Alumni Association has been responsible for the planning and the organization of the Alumni Hall of Fame program. The inductees are selected by a committee which includes teachers, students, administrators, former inductees and Alumni Association board members. The committee meets privately to review the profiles of those nominated and works independently of any other organization - including the Alumni Association - to choose the most worthy candidates for the Hall of Fame. Among the more noted inductees of the past are baseball legend Jackie Robinson (class of 1936); his brother, Olympic silver medalist Mack Robinson (’35); former California Attorney General and Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp (’53); the late science fiction writer Octavia Butler (’65); former Major League Baseball slugger Darrell Evans (’65); Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth(’72); ex-NBA stars Stacey Augmon (’86) and Jacque Vaughn (’93); and Olympic gold medalist Inger Miller (’90). Admission to the ceremony is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the organization’s website at www.jmhsaa.org/halloffame.htm.
