SV Alumni Association Adds Jane Werner ’77 to ‘Wall of Fame’

An accomplished member of Saucon Valley High School’s Class of 1977 had her name added to the Alumni Association’s Wall of Fame during an induction ceremony Nov. 16.

Jane Werner is the executive director of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh; an esteemed cultural institution that welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

Her induction into the Wall of Fame also made her the first person to graduate from Saucon Valley High School–which opened in 1971–to join that elite group, association president Ken Bloss noted. All of the prior inductees graduated from either Hellertown High School or Hellertown-Lower Saucon High School, which became Saucon Valley.

Werner is also the first graduate from the 1970s to see her name added to the Wall of Fame plaque, and to date is the youngest person to be added to it.

Six years after the Wall of Fame was created, the Saucon Valley Alumni Association is more committed than ever to recognizing the achievements of the school’s graduates, Bloss said, adding that “there are a lot of Janes out there.”

Attendees at the ceremony–who included former classmates as well as a former teacher of Werner’s–were given insight into how she views the role of museums by watching a 2019 Tedx talk she gave, “Museums Can Be a Lab for Children’s Learning.”

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In it, Werner recalls visiting Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute as a Saucon Valley sixth-grader and the impact that museum’s hands-on approach to learning had on her.

Just like scientists, “children…are always questioning their model of the world,” she said.

In overseeing the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, her goal has been to design spaces in which children feel free to do that.

The museum and its associated Laboratory of Learning give kids permission to be creative, be curious and be joyful; something Werner said the best teachers do, but which all educators need to get behind.

“Somehow we’ve taken the joy out of learning,” she said in her Tedx talk. “Isn’t that sad?”

Although her work is done outside of a classroom, Werner herself is undoubtedly a teacher, alumni association Wall of Fame committe chair Ron Reichard said at the ceremony held to honor her.

Her former teacher Barry Buckman, who taught Werner math in 1975-76, recalled that as a student “she took her education seriously.”

“Jane Werner was and is one of those special people for whom acknowledgment and accomplishment were never in doubt,” Buckman said.

Werner was joined at the ceremony by close family members, including her life partner, her brother and her mother, who graduated from Hellertown High School in 1942.

“Thank you very much. I really appreciate this award more than you know,” she said in accepting it from the alumni association.

One of her mentors, she said, was the late Fred Rogers, of Mr. Rogers fame, who she quoted in conclusion: “Just be kind and brave. That’s all you ever need to be.”

For more information about the Saucon Valley Alumni Association and the Wall of Fame, as well as ways to support the organization, visit S auconValleyAlumni.org.