District 212 to induct 2018 Wall of Fame honorees

Leyden alumni Brian Fruits and Laura Porro are the Leyden High School District's 2018 Wall of Fame inductees.

• Brian Fruits, Class of 1998, graduated from Concordia University in 2003 and went on to earn a MFA from the University of Memphis in 2013. He has worked as a high schoo English teacher at Oswego East and Dundee-Crown, while directing musicals, plays, speech and coached football as well.

After graduate school, he went to work for B.B.King, overseeing his operations, as the head of creative talent and operations on Holland American Cruise Lines. Currently he is a professor at Concordia College. He also runs the Saltbox Theatre Collective, a nonprofit theatre company which has received much praise, including Chicago Jeff Award recognition.

• Laura Porro, Class of 1999, graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2004 and went on to earn her PhD in paleobiology from the University of Cambridge, UK in 2010. She is currently a Senior Research Associate in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, where she is a part of the paleobiology research group. She is working on several projects using anatomy, techniques from engineering and material sciences, and work with living animals - like lizards, crocodiles and fish - to understand how extinct animals functioned. She has been published in numerous scientific journals and presented results from her research at national and international scientific conferences to much acclaim.

The Alumni Wall of Fame induction ceremony and luncheon will take place on Friday, Sept. 28, at the West campus. The honorees will speak to students at both campuses before and after the ceremony.

"The alumni use this opportunity to share their personal journeys with us," says Janine Asmus, program coordinator. "Over the nineteen years coordinating this program, I am always amazed by how genuinely touched they (inductees) are by the recognition. When they reflect on their Leyden education, they realize all the tremendous opportunities provided to them."

In addition, the alums will be introduced at half-time during the varsity homecoming game, West Leyden stadium, beginning at 7:30 p.m.