SPHS Warrior Publications

"Our Fallen Warriors Remembered" / "And then SPARKS flew"

In 2016 the Alumni Association announced the release of a publication entitled, “Our Fallen Warriors, Remembered” (OFWR) as part of the 100 year Anniversary Celebration.

The softcover publication is a timeline of 155 of our warriors during their experiences and activities at South Park through their loss of life in service to America. It chronicles, to the best of the ability of the school publications, local newspapers and other internet resources, the “history” of each at South Park and then in their final days in service during WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Five died as Prisoners of War, and two later repatriated. Thirty remain Missing in Action.

It also honors 15 additional former students from World War II who were not included on the Monument outside the school, in 1946.

Following the 2016 release research continued with two new data sources becoming known; one from the U.S. Army and the other from the U.S. Air Force which eventually provided information and insight into many of the warriors that hadn't been available at the time of their deaths. Specifically, much of it retrieved between 2016 and 2018, had been classified as Secret or Confidential until it was declassified long after the operational intelligence value had passed. In perspective, it was not readily available to family members or the South Park community at the time of occurrence and it is from this information that "And then SPARKS flew" (ATSF) was published in 2019 documenting the service of 70 of our classmates who lost their lives in service while assigned to Air Units.

While OFWR is no longer available, it is present in the Buffalo and Erie Public Library, Grosvenor Section and the Buffalo Historical Society. ATSF remains available through the publisher, https://www.rpsspublishing.com. In both of these publications, all profit was donated to the Alumni Association to support a "Mallion - McKeever Award" honoring John A. Mallion and David McKeever the first and most recent classmates lost in battle.

Due to the 2020 pandemic, it was decided to make both publications available on the South Park High School and this website. (A friendly word, however, each are several hundred pages and will require lots of ink and paper for home print jobs.)

Noteworthy, the active research into this project has been concluded as of June 2021. As of that date, 206 former classmates have been researched.