Being inducted into the Hall of Fame is a sure sign of greatness.

This year marks the 11th Annual Hershey High School Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where four alumni and one highly decorated gymnastics coach will be honored for their accomplishments by having their plaque forever hang in the walls of Hershey High.

Sarah Wilhite, one of the alumni being honored, is a three time Mid Penn Champion, a two time District III runner up, a National Field Hockey Coaches Association D1 All Star, and a 2005 Hershey High School Graduate.

Wilhite, now known as Biondo, was a four year varsity starter for the Hershey High field hockey team, and a three year starter for girls soccer, back when girls soccer was a spring sport.

Wilhite started playing soccer when she was four years old. She played all the way to her senior year in high school. She first picked up a field hockey stick in fifth grade and fell in love with it.  Wilhite ultimately chose field hockey as her main sport and continued her career at the University of Michigan from 2005 to 2008.

Wilhite played club soccer for coach Jeff Rosensteel and played at the High School for Mark Brown. Wilhite began club field hockey in seventh grade for East Coast Field Hockey. She was also coached at HHS by Tami Scola.

By the time junior year came, Wilhite had to make a decision between soccer and field hockey.

She said she felt burned out of soccer since she had been playing since such a young age.

“Field hockey was still new and still fun,” said Wilhite. “Plus, PA field hockey is crazy.”

Wilhite played for the U.S. national team for the under 16 and under 20 age division where she represented the United States in Europe, Australia, and Canada.

After graduating from Hershey nearly 11 years ago, many things have changed. Social media wasn’t as big then as it is today. She described how everyone at school had friendships with students at other high schools like Lower Dauphin and Palmyra, but it’s different now with the influence of social media.

“We thought we were pretty connected, but now it’s a whole new ballgame.” said Wilhite.

From 2002 to 2005, Wilhite had a good amount of memories from her high school years, but the thing that stuck out to her was the school pride at Hershey.

“Not ‘til I moved away did I realize how special that place [HHS] was,” she said.

But on the field, Wilhite described her favorite memory from high school being the time she went into double overtime against Warwick High School her junior year.

“That game was the most exhausted I’ve ever been…my stick broke in half and I remember one of my friends telling me to just play really, really low!” said Wilhite.

Hershey won the game after two overtimes and penalty strokes.

“I made my mom give me a massage after the game on the field; my legs were so tired!” said Wilhite.

Nonetheless, she described it as “a core effort to get that win.”

To all the student athletes at Hershey High, Wilhite wants them to enjoy high school.

“There’s such a focus on college, focus on the present and be the best you can be. Do it because you want to do it not because of your parents or your teammates or coaches.” said Wilhite, “The minute you don’t love it anymore is the minute you have to reflect on yourself.”

17 years prior to Wilhite, another HHS alum found her niche on the basketball court.

“I am honored to be apart of it,” said 1988 graduate Sherri Eyer. Eyer was an all star basketball player. She also ran cross country and track and field.

Eyer found out about her induction from former teammate and current HHS teacher, Nikki Fisher.

Eyer said, “It [being inducted] was a wonderful surprise and I am honored to be a part of it.”

Eyer started track and cross country for coach Bob Dailey in middle school.

“I remember everyone had a crush on Bob Dailey,” said Eyer, “He was my first love in terms of coaches.”

By the time freshman year rolled around, Eyer began cross country for the High School under coach Al Fricke and running track for coach Rick Reitz. Sophomore year, Eyer placed fourth  in the state for the 800 meter dash in track and field. She also placed third in the state for the 300 meter hurdles and was a District III champion for the 300 meter hurdles.

Between cross country and track season, Eyer was scoring 1056 points for the girls basketball team. She was a 2 time member of the Mid Penn 2 All Star team and by her senior year she averaged 19 points and 12 rebounds a game. Eyer attended the University of Miami in Miami, Florida and during her freshman year she helped lead the basketball team to its first ever NCAA appearance. Over her four years playing for the Miami Hurricanes she helped her team finish with an overall record of 100 wins and 26 losses.

Eyer is now a lawyer and lives in Drexel Hill, PA. With being away 28 years from Hershey High, much has changed.

“We actually had to pass notes in class – we couldn’t just text our friends like they do today,” said Eyer.

Her favorite memories of being a Trojan in the 1980’s involved her friends and teammates trying to achieve a common goal both on the court and on the track. Eyer described how sports has given her the discipline and the confidence to achieve anything she puts her mind to. She uses those skills she gained from her sports career in her everyday job.

“Just like I wouldn’t think about stepping up to a starting line or onto a court without putting in the necessary work, I wouldn’t walk into a courtroom to try a case without the same level of preparation,” said Eyer.

To all of the athletes representing Hershey High, Eyer gave advice to help make their four years at Hershey memorable.  

Eyer said, “Treasure your teammates and friends because when you get older and look back, it’s not the scores and the awards you’ll remember most but the people!”

The third inductee not only taught Eyer in health class, but she was also a big part of Hershey’s athletic success: not in the game, but rather on the sideline.

In 1976, a young Carol Orlosky, now Fricke, a recent graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania got her first job teaching at Hershey High. Fricke taught health and physical education for 35 years at Hershey and was the head gymnastics coach for 30 years. Within those 30 years, Fricke led her team to multiple victories including two state championships, ten individual state championships, Mid Penn Championships and nine District III individual championships.

Being around HHS for 35 years, Fricke has seen the school and the sport of gymnastics change and evolve with the times. Not only has the Hershey school district evolved but so has the sport of gymnastics.

“It’s night and day compared to when I was gyming back when.” said Fricke, “As the equipment changed, the sport changed.”

Fricke described how she’d never be able to teach the crazy tricks there are now on the wooden beams and wrestling mats they used in the school gymnasium.

But the biggest change involving high school gymnastics is the lack of it.

“We held on at Hershey as long as we could,” said Fricke

Unfortunately during the last five years of teaching, Fricke had to witness her gymnastics program get cut. Hershey stopped the program because they didn’t have anyone to go against according to Fricke. Chambersburg, Waynesboro and Hershey were the only schools left with a gymnastics program, which was not enough teams to form a league.

Local high schools didn’t have support from the club teams in the area Fricke explained. Clubs wanted their athletes to compete for them and them only and didn’t want the competitors to have anything to do with the high school program.

In other states like Texas, Ohio, and Virginia, high school gymnastics is very well established according to Fricke.

“[Gymnastics] just died in Pennsylvania,” said Fricke.

Fricke loved spending time with her gymnasts and teaching them a new skill. She loved watching them achieve their dreams and become friends outside of the gym as well.

“Just being able to help these gymnasts attain their dream was the biggest thing for me,” said Fricke. “That meant more to me than any district championships or states.”

The next inductee coached along with Fricke at Hershey but not before receiving a mass of awards and honors as a high school athlete.

Edward Fornwalt was born in 1927 and spent the first 15 years of his life in Ohio. When he was a sophomore in high school, his family moved to Hershey to accommodate his dad’s job in the Navy.

When Fornwalt first got the news they were leaving Ohio, he was devastated and “thought he was going to die” as he put it. But as it turns out, Hershey is where he chose to spend the rest of his life.

“It took two weeks to say it [Hershey] was my home” said Fornwalt. He hasn’t moved away from Hershey since 1942.

Fornwalt graduated from Hershey High in 1945. Fornwalt was a tackle on the football team and finished second in scoring in the South Penn conference in basketball.

He was one of the first runners on the Hershey track and field team. Fornwalt was the first ever pole vaulter at Hershey High. He even built the pole vaulting pit himself and filled it with sawdust. Fornwalt was self-taught and finished fifth in the District III championship.

Fornwalt went on to become the head football coach at Hershey from 1952 to 1954. He served as the assistant basketball coach from 1951 to 1954 and coached the track and field team. But perhaps his stellar high school career could have ended differently had World War II not broken out.

During his senior year, Fornwalt enlisted in the U.S. Navy.  He served aboard the light cruiser USS Little Rock for a year and a half. When the war ended, he returned home to Hershey.

“I never saw graduation at Hershey,” said Fornwalt.

Fornwalt attended Hershey Junior college for two years after returning from the war and played basketball.

The Hershey Junior college was held in the community center in 1945 and gave an education to those who couldn’t afford regular college. After junior college, he transferred to the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  There he was named one of the greatest ends in football in the previous 25 years at Indiana according to University of Indiana Athletic Director George P. Miller.  

Being nearly 71 years removed from the Derry Township School District, he depicted it as now feeling like a prison. He described how he was in the school in the recent weeks and how it has changed so much from his days in 1945.

“I didn’t know how to get in [to the school],” said Fornwalt.

In his time, the doors to the school were always open no one had to click a buzzer to gain admittance.

But aside from the school changing, school sports changed his life for the better.

“It taught me discipline,” said Fornwalt. “It made me a competitor.”

This love for competition was translated into coaching for the Hershey high school football, basketball and track and field teams between the years 1951 and 1955.

In addition to Fornwalt, yet another Hershey alum went on to be a successful coach for a local high school.

Four years, four sports, 11 varsity letters, and a stadium named after him. Roscoe Warner is the fifth member of this year’s Hall of Fame inductee class. A 1927 Hershey High graduate, Warner received 11 varsity letters in his time at Hershey in football, basketball, baseball and track and field.

Warner helped lead the football team to victory with a record of 8 wins, 0 loses and 1 tie in a single season, which made it the first undefeated team in Hershey High history. Senior year, Warner led the basketball team to a 22-2 record, PIAA District III title, and to a third consecutive Lower Dauphin county title.

Warner later attended Shepherd University in West Virginia and excelled at football, baseball, basketball, and track and field. In 1934, he was named Outstanding Offensive Lineman for football in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC). Warner was a center for the basketball team and played outfield, first base, and pitcher for the baseball team at Shepherd University.

He later coached football at Lower Paxton High School for four years and held a record of 33 wins, seven loses and one tie. After Lower Paxton, Warner coached at Susquehanna High School from 1941-1959 and held a record of 104-61-13. He lead his football teams to six Lower Susquehanna Conference championships. Warner also coached basketball at Susquehanna from 1941-1948 and track and field from 1948-1957.

In 1976, Warner was inducted in the Central Chapter of the PA Sports Hall of Fame. In 1966, the Susquehanna football stadium was renamed after him. For the past 50 years it has been known as Roscoe Warner Stadium.

Warner unfortunately passed, so his son George Warner will be receiving the award on his behalf.

Friday, September 30th, during the HHS annual homecoming football game, these five alumni were escorted across the field at Hersheypark Stadium and finally received their award.

From this point forward, the athletes who have dedicated a portion of their lives and excelled at their sport as a Hershey Trojan will have their efforts rewarded and forever be a member of the Hershey High School Athletic Hall of Fame.