Shepard celebrates graduates for Black History Month

To celebrate Black History Month, District 218 will graduates from Eisenhower, Richards, and Shepard high schools who have achieved noteworthy success academically, professionally, artistically, in public service, or in some other field of endeavor.

This story, one of several this month, features graduates from Shepard High School.

Sam Jones, Class of 1996
Today Sam works as the Coordinator for Player Development for the Cleveland Cavaliers of the NBA. Through many years of experience and hard work playing and coaching Sam landed this position.

"One of the things I like about my job is the development piece. I help young professional NBA players develop on and off the court. Helping them with their skill work on the court and how to create an effective regime and mindset off the court. It brings me great joy to develop meaningful relationships with these world class athletes and people," he said.

After high school, Sam studied Business Management at Northwood University on a basketball scholarship. In 2000, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business management and a contract to play professional basketball in Belgium.

He would play 10 years professionally in Belgium, Poland, The Netherlands, Spain and Cyprus. He played in two all-star games and won a pair of championships.

In 2010 he transitioned to coaching as an assistant coach for Eiffel Towers, Den Bosch in The Netherlands. He assisted Den Bosch from 2010-2013 and won a championship as an assistant coach. In 2013 he was hired as head coach of the same team and led them from 2013-2016, also winning a championship as a head coach.

During his time in The Netherlands, Jones acquired his Dutch citizenship and learned the language. This allowed him to become the Associate Head Coach of the Dutch National Basketball team from 2013-2016. He helped lead them to the Eurobasket Olympic Qualifying tournament held in Croatia in the summer of 2015, a level The Netherlands hadn’t reached since 1989.
Jones returned to the United States in the summer of 2016 after being offered a job with the G League team of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Canton Charge. Jones was the assistant coach for Canton from 2016-2018 and the Associate Head Coach from 2018-2019. In 2019 Jones was promoted to the Cleveland Cavaliers as Assistant Coach/Player Development Coordinator. Sam is also the co-director of the Nike Basketball Academy held every summer in Los Angeles.

Kimberly Young, Class of 1999
Kimberly earned studied broadcast journalism and communications at Northern Illinois University where she worked as a producer at Northern Television Center. Today she works as a supervising producer for Fox News 11 in St. Louis.

She has won four Emmy Awards and earned nominations 13 times.

Prior to working in St. Louis she worked in South Bend, Indiana; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and, Kansas City, Missouri. She's worked in St. Louis, for over 10 years.

During her time in St. Louis she also created a local talk show “Afternoons on 11” to serve as a platform to engage the public on topics such as crisis intervention, current affairs, educational tools, financial security and others. “Afternoons on 11” achieved national status with segments on OWN’s “Welcome to Sweetie Pie’s” and We TV’s “Mary Mary.”

Charles Burnett III, Class of 2016
During his days as a student at Shepard he served as Commander for the U.S. Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

After high school he decided to serve his country in the US Air Force. He is currently an Airman 1st Class in the United States Air Force and is responsible for the fueling of the aircraft being sent out on missions. He and his wife Sam, a Senior Airman in the US Air Force and also a Shepard grad, are currently stationed in Spangdahlem, Germany.

He is the father of twin daughters, Addylyn and Rhiannon, who are now two years old and keep him pretty busy. He takes great pride in his woodworking and is very successful at it.

Korie Porter, Class of 1997
Korie graduated from HBCU Tennessee State University in 2001 with a bachelor's degree in Biology. She would later earn a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Chicago State University.

A former trustee for the Village of Robbins, today she owns Mommy and Me Daycare in Robbins.
She shared some details about her work:

I enjoy that I play a major role in the development of a child’s learning process in the early stages. Working with parents to get their children to the next level and ready for preschool and or kindergarten.

I help mold them even outside of intellectual learning but aiding in teaching them the start of proper manors and the behaviors is something I pride my business and staff on when working with the children. I also love that I am able to help my community and help empower the young men and women with resources to help them better themselves along this path called life.