On Sunday, April 6, 2025, the Northeast Catholic Alumni Association will hold our 94rd Annual Communion Breakfast. This event includes a mass and breakfast. The breakfast will feature guest speakers and our Hall of Fame inductions for 2025. Both the mass and the breakfast will be held at Cannstatter Volkest-Verein (9130 Academy Rd, Philadelphia), with the mass beginning at 8:30am and the breakfast and awards ceremony taking place immediately following the mass.
Due to our costs increasing this year, we were forced to raise the ticket price to $35/ticket for advance tickets, or $40 at the door. You can purchase your ticket(s) from any member of the Alumni Board of Governors, at the Alumni Office (2700 Rhawn St), or online on our website. Tickets purchased online will be mailed out to you.
Featured Guests
Once again, our Toastmaster for this year’s Communion Breakfast is Karen Hepp.
She is co-anchor for the Fox 29 News team from 4 to 6 a.m. hours and joins the set as co-host for the final hour of show from 9 to 10 a.m.
Karen is a graduate of New York University and is married with three sons.
Karen also has a connection to North Catholic with her uncle Mr. Joseph Hepp from the class of 1957.
The Alumni Association is so grateful and thankful for being our Toastmaster again this year.
OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Our guest speaker, and recipient of our "Outstanding Achievement Award", will be Meg Kane, President and CEO of Signature 57, a growing strategic communications firm focused on business and media strategy, sequencing, stakeholder relations, and storytelling.
Meg served as Manager of Bid Coordination and External Affairs to help secure the FIFA Would Cup games coming to Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field on July 4, 2026. This is a huge event like staging 5 Super Bowls estimating 500,000 people, exclusive to the World Cup visitors, traveling to the City of Brotherly Love.
She earned the Christian Brothers Scholarship to La Salle University and graduated with a BA in Communications and a Master of Arts degree in Strategic Public Relations, Political Rhetoric, and Crisis Communications at the University of Maryland as part of the Full Fellowship.
Meg was past President of LaSalle University Alumni Association, 2009 - 2011, Trustee from 2012 -2022 and first woman to be Vice Chair, 2019 - 2022.
Meg has a connection to North Catholic by being the daughter of Stephen J. Wood, Sr. class of 1968 who along with his wife Debbie suddenly and tragically passed away in 2024.
As a recipient of many leadership awards Meg Kane certainly deserves the Northeast Catholic Outstanding Achievement Award for 2025.
The Class of 2025 of the Northeast Catholic Alumni Hall of Fame
Created in 1989, the Northeast Catholic Alumni Hall of Fame has annually honored up to five Alum who have made significant contributions to our community in five separate areas since graduating from Northeast Catholic. These categories include Arts/Entertainment, Athletics, Business/Labor/Military, Religion, and Service.
Since 2011, the men inducted into the NECHS Hall of Fame have been enshrined at our Annual Communion Breakfast. On Sunday, April 6, 2025, the following men will be inducted into the Northeast Catholic Alumni Hall of Fame as the Class of 2025. This year's inductees include Bob Kelly `81 (Arts/Entertainment), Dennis Hill `67 (Athletics), James Boylan `70 (Business/Labor/Military), Fr. Stephen Thorne `86 (Religion) and Michael A Ferris `82 (Service).
ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Bob is an Emmy Award winning broadcaster who has entertained people in the Delaware Valley for the past 30 years. He has entertained fans on the jumbotron at Eagles games, with his "Tailgate Takeover." He co-hosted the Philadelphia St. Patrick’s Day parade for more than 15 years. He joined the Fox 29 News team in October 2014 as a traffic reporter for "Good Day Philadelphia."
Bob has revolutionized TV traffic reporting with his high energy delivery and popular phrases like "jammo", "Conshy Curve" and "two jelly donut delay." He also hosts "Kelly Drives," a weekly half hour show introducing new and interesting places to visit in the Philadelphia area.
ATHLETICS
Dennis Played basketball at North Catholic and earned a 4-year scholarship to Ohio Dominican University. Dennis served first as a Philadelphia Police Officer then as a supervisor in Public Safety at the University of Pennsylvania.
He coached youth basketball and was the Executive Director of the Markward Basketball Club and Selection Chair for the Philadelphia All Star Labor Classic. He greatly enjoyed helping others whenever he had the opportunity.
BUSINESS, LABOR, MILLITARY
Jim was a key player in the celebrated JV basketball game of 1968. The top vote getter for All-Catholic, he accepted a full scholarship to Villanova University. Jim was a well-regarded Teacher and Coach at Bishop Egan H.S. but changed careers after 6 years working the next 36 years in the healthcare industry for the clinical lab division of SmithKline, later acquired by Quest Diagnostics, an $8 billion-dollar medical laboratory company.
He served in senior leadership positions of increasing responsibility in sales, operations, and general management. He also managed a 24-hour/day lab operation leading a regional workforce of eight hundred technicians, service, and management employees. He also won the President’s Club Award for leading a multi-year re-engineering project, critical to improving customer satisfaction and patient care.
RELIGION
Father Stephen Thorne is a native of Philadelphia, whose home parish was Our Lady of the Holy Souls. He followed his brothers - Vance, George, and Michael and attended Northeast Catholic High School, graduating in 1986. While at North, he was in the band, co-editor of the school newspaper, and a member of the National Honor Society.
He attended Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary and was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on May 16, 1998. Since ordination, Father Thorne has served in parishes, administration of the archdiocese, and as a faculty member of Saint John Neumann High School in South Philadelphia and Neumann University. He has earned five academic degrees, including a doctorate in educational leadership.
In 2017, he was honored by the National Catholic Education Association for his leadership as an educator and pastor.
Father Thorne is grateful to the Oblates of Saint Francis de Sales and the lay faculty at North who gave him a solid foundation to live Jesus!
SERVICE
Mike is a proud graduate of Northeast Catholic’s class of 1982. After graduation, he attended Pierce College and then Drexel University, where he gained technical skills that led to a long and successful career as an IT professional.
He has been a member of the Northeast Catholic Alumni board of Governors for over a decade, spanning two different terms of service. In addition to being the current first vice president of the Alumni Association and a member of several committees, Mike has spent most of his adult life volunteering in a wide range of organizations, including but not limited to being an officer and coach at Wissinoming Boys Club, CYO softball coach at St Martin of Tours, as well as a member of several civic boards and committees in both Philadelphia and Warminster. He was also very active with the North Catholic football and basketball teams during the last decade that the school was open. Today, when he’s not putting in long hours maintaining the alumni association’s website, social media platforms, and serving on various association committees, Mike is a youth and high school football official in the Philadelphia area.