APRIL 26, 2010 PRESS
RELEASE
CONTACT:
Jack McCarthy, Project Director, Northeast Philadelphia Hall
of Fame
215-824-1636; jacksnotes88@verizon.net
Northeast Philadelphia Hall of Fame announces 2012 Inductees
Philadelphia, PA – Sister Francesca Onley, CSFN,
President of Holy Family University, and Dennis M. O’Brien, Philadelphia City
Councilman At-Large, announced the 2012 inductees into the Northeast
Philadelphia Hall of Fame at a press conference April 26, 2012 at Holy Family
University.
The 2012 inductees – two historical figures, two living
individuals, and one group of institutions - include Inventor and Solar Power
Pioneer Frank Shuman (1862-1918), Civil Rights Leader and Anti-apartheid
Activist Reverend Leon Sullivan (1922-2001), Business and Community Leader Ed
Kelly, Astronaut Chris Ferguson, and seven Northeast Philadelphia houses of
worship at least 200 years old, to be inducted as a group: Unity Monthly
Meeting Frankford, founded 1682, and Byberry Monthly Meeting, founded 1683, both
among the earliest Quaker meetings in Pennsylvania; Pennepack Baptist Church,
Bustleton, founded in 1688, Pennsylvania’s oldest Baptist Church; Trinity
Church Oxford, Lawndale, in existence since at least 1698 and one of the oldest
Episcopal churches in Pennsylvania; Presbyterian Church of Frankford, founded
1770; All Saints Episcopal Church, Torresdale, founded 1772; and Campbell AME
Church, Frankford, founded 1807, the nation’s second oldest African Methodist
Episcopal Church.
The inductees were chosen by the Hall of Fame Selection
Committee, an eight-member panel of experts in various aspects of Northeast
Philadelphia life. The committee is chaired by Sister Francesca Onley. The
public participated in the selection process by suggesting candidates for the
committee’s consideration.
The inductees will be honored at a ceremony to be held Sunday,
October 21, 2012 at 1:00 PM in the Education & Technology Center building
at Holy Family University, 9801 Grant Avenue, Philadelphia, PA, 19114.
Inductees into the Northeast Philadelphia Hall of Fame must
be Northeast Philadelphia residents past or present whose lives or careers have
been marked by high achievement, or individuals or organizations that have had a
lasting, significant, and positive impact on the Northeast Philadelphia
community. Past inductees have included Pennsylvania’s first Surveyor General
Thomas Holme, Signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush,
Abolitionist Robert Purvis, Industrialist & Philanthropists Henry and Mary
Disston, Humanitarian & Catholic Saint Katharine Drexel, Educator &
Historian Harry Silcox, Jazz Drummer Butch Ballard, NBA Hall of Famer &
Elected Official Tom Gola, Former Philadelphia City Councilwoman Joan
Krajewski, Homeless Advocate Sister Mary Scullion, and social service agencies
Aid For Friends and SPIN (Special People in the Northeast).
The goal of the Northeast Philadelphia Hall of Fame is to
foster civic values and a sense of community in Northeast Philadelphia, along
with a greater awareness and appreciation of the area’s rich history, by
honoring the lives and accomplishments of its most distinguished citizens.
The Northeast Philadelphia Hall of Fame is sponsored by the Mayfair
Community Development Corporation in partnership with Holy Family University, Historical
Society of Frankford, The Northeast Times, and Philadelphia City Councilman At-Large
Dennis M. O’Brien.
# # #
Brief Profiles of 2012
Inductees
Historical Figures
Frank Shuman (1862-1918), Inventor and Solar Power Pioneer
Frank Shuman was born in 1862 in Brooklyn, NY. He had little formal education but his
interest in science led him to experiment and many of his experiments would
become important inventions. His first
invention, a process for making wire glass, won Shuman the prestigious John
Scott Medal from the Franklin Institute, an honor shared with the likes of
Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Madame Curie, and Jonas Salk. Frank Shuman moved to Philadelphia in the
1890s to work for the Tacony Iron Works on fabrication of the William Penn
statue that now sits atop of Philadelphia City Hall. While living in Tacony he operated businesses
and began conducting experiments on an invention he called a “sun machine,”
which used solar heat to run an internal combustion engine. He received a patent on this invention in
1910. In 1912 he began construction in
Egypt on the world’s first solar thermal power station, designed to pump water
from the Nile River to irrigate the area’s cotton fields. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought a
halt to the project and it was never revived. Shuman returned to Philadelphia,
where he later invented safety glass, which is still used in cars and trains
today. He died in 1918 at the age of 56, without realizing his dream of
harnessing the power of the sun as a safe, renewal power source.
Leon Sullivan (1922-2001), Civil Rights
Leader/Anti-apartheid Activist
Leon Sullivan was born in Charleston, WV, in 1922 and became
a Baptist minister at the age of 18. In 1943 he moved to New York City, where
he attended Union Theological Seminary and then Columbia University, from which
he received a master’s degree in religion in 1947. In 1950 he became Pastor of
Zion Baptist Church in Philadelphia, where he served until 1988 and became
known as the “Lion of Zion.” In the 1950s Reverend Sullivan and his wife,
Grace, were among the original residents of Greenbelt Knoll, a residential
development in Holmesburg that was the first planned interracial development in
Philadelphia and one of the first in the nation. Reverend Sullivan was a
well-known civil rights leader and activist who initiated many innovative
social and economic development programs.
In
1964 he founded the Opportunities Industrialization Centers, which became
a successful national and then international job training and life skills program. In
1971, he joined
the Board of Directors of General Motors, becoming the first African American
on the board of a major corporation. Leon Sullivan was also an
internationally-respected anti-apartheid activist. His “Sullivan Principles” were widely adopted
and helped to hasten the end of apartheid in South Africa. Reverend Sullivan received numerous awards and honorary
doctorates in his lifetime. In 1992 he received the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President George H. W. Bush.
He died on April 24, 2001 at the age of 78.
Living Individuals
Ed Kelly, Business and Community Leader
Ed Kelly is a longtime community activist and business
leader in Northeast Philadelphia. A
World War II combat veteran who served in the Pacific theater, Ed was the owner
of a successful auto repair business in Burholme. This led him to become a member and eventually
president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. He served
in the latter capacity from 1971 through 1982.
In the 1970s Ed Kelly and others founded the Pennypack Park Music
Festival. Free concerts were held once a
week in the Park and Kelly paid to have a band shell built to showcase the
performers at these concerts. The
concerts stopped in 1991 but with Kelly’s help began again in 2001. The band
shell and stage were restored and in July 2011 the stage was named the Ed Kelly
Stage. Kelly and his wife Jane live in
the Rhawnhurst section of NE Philadelphia and have been married for over 60
years.
Chris Ferguson, Astronaut
Retired astronaut and US Navy Captain Chris Ferguson
graduated from Archbishop Ryan High School in 1979. He received his undergraduate degree from
Drexel University in 1984 and his master’s in aeronautical engineering from the
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.
He served as a naval pilot until entering the US Space program in 1998. His
first space flight was in 2006. He served as commander of the November 2008 Endeavour
Space Shuttle flight and the July 2011 Atlantis flight. The latter was the final flight of Atlantis
and represented the end of NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Chris Ferguson was a highly decorated officer
prior to retiring from the Navy in June 2010 and then from NASA in December
2011. He is now employed by the Boeing
Company as Director of Commercial Crew Interface in the company’s Space
Exploration Division. He lives in
Houston with his wife Sandra and their three children.
Institutional
Inductees: Northeast Philadelphia houses of worship at least 200 years
old:
·
All Saints Episcopal Church, Torresdale,
founded in 1772
·
Campbell
AME Church, Frankford, founded in 1807, the nation’s second oldest African
Methodist Episcopal Church
·
Pennepack
Baptist Church, Bustleton, founded in 1688, Pennsylvania’s oldest Baptist
Church
·
Presbyterian
Church of Frankford, founded 1770, the original church building housed
prisoners captured in Battle of Trenton during Revolutionary War
·
Trinity
Church Oxford, Lawndale, since at least 1698, one of the oldest Episcopal
churches in Pennsylvania
·
Unity
Monthly Meeting Frankford, founded in 1682, and Byberry Monthly Meeting, founded in 1683, among earliest Quaker
meetings in Pennsylvania
