Al Rhodes, the winningest coach in Penn High School Boys Basketball history, announced his retirement as head coach of the Kingsmen.

A Penn graduate and an Indiana Hall of Fame inductee, Rhodes crafted a golden legacy in Indiana high school basketball coaching. He is 693-329 overall in 42 seasons, including a record of 239-128 in 15 seasons at Penn.

“Having coached a Final Four team in each of five decades I’ve coached, I don’t think the game ever passed me by!” Rhodes said. “I have studied basketball all my life and am extremely proud of my past players and their successes on and off the court.  I would also like to thank all my assistant coaches from all the schools I coached at.  Also, I worked for great administrators and I appreciate all they did for our programs!

“Dr. Jerry Thacker here at Penn High School has been great to work for!  His vision as an educator is tremendous and he brings out the best in all around him!”

“It has been a great ride and I have done my best!” Rhodes said.

Penn Athletic Director Jeff Hart said that Rhodes established a standard of excellence at Penn and in Indiana.

“Coach Rhodes’ legendary career speaks for itself,” Hart said. “As an Indiana High School Basketball Coach for 42 years, he ranks among the all-time successful leaders of the sport in our great state.  What can’t be measured by wins and losses is the positive impact he’s had on countless young people during his career.

“From students in his math classes to the players and coaches in the programs that he’s led, he’s educated and mentored consistently with a “teacher’s heart,” Hart continued.  “I’ve been fortunate to watch his leadership with character approach close up for the last several years and I’m a better person because of it.”

Notre Dame signee Markus Burton, the All-Time Boys Basketball leading scorer for Penn and St. Joseph County, said that Rhodes played a critical role in his development as a Division I basketball player. Click here to watch/listen to a podcast with Markus and Coach Rhodes.

“He believed in me more than anyone in Indiana,” said Burton, a frontrunner for the 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball Award. “He believed in me as a Freshman. I appreciate his strategy for the game, and his relationships with his players. Everyone can relate to him and trust him. He’s helped me be the best I can be every day, and taught me to be a leader.”

In the past two seasons, Rhodes has guided Penn to a remarkable record of 52-5. This past season, Penn posted a 28-2 record and reached the Final Four for just the fourth time in the program’s 65-year history. Penn was also invited to compete in the prestigious Hall of Fame Classic this season.

Penn’s combined Varsity (28-2), Junior Varsity (20-2) and Freshmen (22-0) won-loss record in the 2022-2023 season was 70-4.

Rhodes coached Warsaw to a state championship in 1984, and while at Warsaw coached two players to the Mr. Basketball Award – Jeff Grose and Kevin Ault. Coach Rhodes also coached former UNC and Los Angeles Lakers star Rick Fox.

Coach Rhodes has also coached against the likes of former NBA greats like Shawn Kemp and Scott Skiles.

Rhodes’ teams have won 18 Sectional Championships, nine Regional Championships, four Semi-State Championships, and one State Championship.

In addition to his high school coaching, Rhodes has made an impact on the national and international scene. He has coached in the McDonald’s All-American Game, and been an instructor at the heralded Five-Star Camp, where he was inducted into the Five-Star Camp Hall of Fame. He was selected as an instructor for the Five-Star Camp in Turkey, and was an assistant coach on the Bahamas National Team. He also helped develop the Bahamas Basketball Youth Program, and was a director of the coaches development program in Australia.

Rhodes, who graduated from Penn in 1970, is grateful to his family and the Penn community as well as the many coaches who have influenced him.

“In 1967, I met the new Penn High School Coach, Jim Miller!” Rhodes said. “Jim taught us about pursuit of excellence and that the Indiana State Championship was the ultimate goal that could be achieved.  For the past 56 years, I have pursued that goal with all my heart.  

“The byproduct of what Coach Miller taught me has been a wonderful life!  I have tried my best to be the best husband, father, teacher and coach that I could be.  I owe everything to my parents, my wife, and Coach Miller! 

“I would like to thank my wife Kathy for all of her support through the years,” Rhodes continued. “She is a very special person, nurse, mother, and wife!  It is not easy being a basketball coach’s wife in Indiana.  She has been a great one!

“As a father, I am extremely proud of my two sons, Chris and Curtis.  They both understand pursuit of excellence and are building great lives for themselves and their families.  I am glad they never complained about all the time I spent coaching.

“My sister Sandi has also added great support through the years!  I really appreciate her coming to games and being there for me win or lose!”

Rhodes paid tribute to the coaches in his life.

“When I was a young coach, I was fortunate to learn from the best,” Rhodes said. “Besides Coach Miller, my coach at Tri-State, Mark Peterman, was a great small college coach.

“From 1975 on, I was trained by the best coaches Indiana has ever seen.  My first year I worked for Basil Mawbey at Angola High School.  Basil is the hardest working coach the State has ever known.  

“I learned from competing against the best coaches in Indiana history:  Bill Harrell, Sam Alford, Jim Hammel, Jack Edison, Bill Green to name a few.  

“Finally, the greatest coach ever, John Wooden, was a constant influence in our program!  The Pyramid of Success always played a major role!”

Ahead of National Teacher Appreciation Week is next week (May 1-5) Penn-Harris-Madison Superintendent Dr. Jerry Thacker is announcing the winners of P-H-M’s Teacher of the Year. Today (Tuesday, April 25) with the help of his students, some Penn administrators, coaches, fellow teachers and staff, Dr. Thacker was able to surprise Penn High School AP History Teacher and Tennis Coach Eric Bowers with the news that he is P-H-M’s Secondary Teacher of the Year. Click to see the photo gallery below.

Coach Bowers is in his 20th year of teaching and all of those years have been at Penn High School, including doing his student teaching with P-H-M. All of his years of teach have been in the social studies field. For this school year, Bowers is teaching AP U.S. History and AP European History to more than 230 students over eight sections. Even though today’s surprise announcement disrupted one of his AP History classes, much to the students dismay, it did not postpone their final!

It was clear with today’s show of support, that Bowers is a beloved teacher and coach. He has been the Penn Boys and Girls Tennis coach his entire 20 years at Penn. As Coach, he’s won 26 Sectional Championships, 10 Regional Championships, had four Semi-state appearances, and coached one individual State Champion, Alexandra Brinker, in 2013. Coach Bowers was named the 2018 Indiana Boys Tennis Coach of the Year by the Indiana High School Tennis Coaches Association.

There aren’t too many teachers who can claim the prestige of being named a Fulbright Scholar, but Bowers can! He was named a Fulbright Scholar in 2017 out of more than 3,000 applicants. Just a handful of teaching faculty are awarded this once in a lifetime opportunity to research, study and teach in a country of their choice. Bowers chose to study at Regensburg University in Germany in the summer of 2017. 

In March 2022, Bowers was selected to participate in the inaugural GenEd Teacher Fellowship Program sponsored by the Genocide Education Project (GenEd). Only 16 highly qualified secondary-level educators from 14 states were chosen for the program. In July 2022, the group participated in a 10 day intensive professional development program in Armenia. His work with the Genocide Project and sharing info about the Armenia Genocide with other history teachers at Penn and across the country earned Bowers the opportunity to speak at the National Convention of Social Studies this year in Philadelphia. His work with the University of Pittsburgh enabled him to attend the European Union Conference held in Brussels, Belgium. Next summer, he will participate in the USS Midway Institute for Teachers in San Diego, which offers educational seminars specifically designed for history and social studies teachers so they can go more in depth about the Cold War, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, and World War II in the Pacific.

Amy Tiebout, Penn science teacher, nominated Bowers for Secondary Teacher of the Year commented on the value these rich historical and academic experiences brings to his students, “Eric’s travels around the world strengthens his ability to connect students to the content, as he has real-life experiences to add to the areas he teaches. He connects to such a wide range of students at Penn, including athletes, high ability academics, and everyone in between.”

Bowers has served as a teacher sponsor of a number of cocuricular activities and student clubs, including Model UN and Social Studies Academic Super Bowl both of which he’s coached since 2018. This school year he’s the teacher sponsor of the Muslim Student Association and the newly formed 180 Days Culture Club. The 180 days Culture Club features a monthly speaker, usually a student, who explains their family or native country culture to their classmates. Recently, a student with family in Ukraine impacted by the war presented to a packed room of fellow students.

But probably one of Bowers most favorite student history activity is “Pennstock,” which centers around American History of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Students can chose to perform onstage either in a musical performance or by writing and/or giving a speech. Past topics include “Support our Troops,” anti-Vietnam war, and Women’s Rights. Students who do not want to be onstage can instead set up a booth on such topics as the Space Race, American Indian Movement, or the Cold War. When the weather is nice, it’s held outside and is quite the scene as nearly the entire junior class, a quarter of the student population, is dressed in tie dye and other 60/70s attire.

Talking with Coach Bowers for five minutes it’s clear that he LOVES teaching, “Do what you can to not only promote your classroom but your school as well. I would encourage every teacher to find time to help with at least one club, group, sport, music, theater, or activity to better identify with their students,” says Bowers. “Teachers play a big role with [Penn High School] students from 8:25 – 3:17. The excitement of a student when a teacher helps out, volunteers, or even attends an event is priceless. If a teacher can’t be the head of the program, simply attending and congratulating student achievements works wonders in the lives of our students.” 

It’s hard to believe that Bowers has any free time, but in his spare time he also serves as Penn’s  Intramural Basketball Coordinator. An activity that he also enjoys thoroughly!

Mr. Robi Davidson, music teacher at Walt Disney Elementary School, was announced as P-H-M’s Elementary Teacher of the Year on Monday, April 24. P-H-M Employee of the Year will be announced in the coming days, also as a surprise. All TOY and EOY winners will be officially recognized at P-H-M’s Employee Recognition & Retiree Dinner on Wednesday, May 17th. The two Teachers of the Year will receive a grant from the P-H-M Education Foundation to use in their classroom. Both will go on to compete for Indiana’s Teacher of the Year, which will be announced in early Fall 2024 by the IDOE. Click here for more information.

Penn High School’s Winter Guard will compete in the 2023 International World Championships April 13-15 in Dayton, Ohio.

Penn will compete at the World Level for the first time. There will be over 300 competing teams at this event. Penn competes in the Scholastic Open Class Division against 48 other teams in their classification this weekend. 

Competition is split up into three competitive performances that are judged by a panel of 10 judges. Preliminary competition for Penn is set for 11:03 a.m. Thursday, April 13.

The top 24 teams advance to semi-final competition on Friday, April 14.

The World Championships take place on Saturday, April 15.

Penn Winter Guard competed at two WGI national regionals – at Chicago and at Indianapolis – this season to qualify for the World Championships. Penn qualified by playing as a finalist at each regional, and earned the bronze medalist position at the Chicago Regional.

Set to the soundtrack of Guns N’ Roses “Patience”, the Winter Guard show is titled “Crossroads”.

Penn’s students in Winter Guard have been working on their competition routines since November, and even gave up their Spring Break to practice.

Penn High School’s Markus Burton carved his name into the Indiana Boys Basketball history books, as the 6-foot-1 point guard was named the 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball in a vote by the state’s coaches and media!

The honor was announced at the Indiana High School Sports Awards Show, presented by the Indiana Pacers, at Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall on Wednesday, April 19, 2023. Click here to see the photo gallery below from the Indiana High School Sports Awards Show taken by Indy Star (Wed., April, 19, 2023).

Burton, a Notre Dame signee, is the first Mr. Basketball from Penn High School. He is only the third Boys Basketball player from St. Joseph County to win the coveted Mr. Basketball Award! David Magley of South Bend LaSalle was named Mr. Basketball in 1978, and John Coalman of South Bend Central was named Mr. Basketball in 1957.

“I’m humbled to be the first Mr. Basketball from Penn High School, and only the third Mr. Basketball from St. Joseph County,” Burton said. “Winning Mr. Basketball means a lot to me, knowing it’s been a long time since someone from South Bend brought Mr. Basketball back home. It means a lot to me, and I hope it means a lot to the community.”

Click below to read and watch the media coverage.

• Indy Star, “Penn guard Markus Burton wins 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball in a runaway” April 19, 2023
• Indy Star, “Indiana High School Sports Awards honored state’s best of the best. See who won” April 21, 2023
• South Bend Tribune, “Indiana Mr. Basketball goes to Penn High School standout and Notre Dame commit Markus Burton” April 19, 2023
• South Bend Tribune, “Mr. Basketball an honor for Penn’s Markus Burton, a win for South Bend-Mishawaka area” April 20, 2023
• South Bend Tribune, Photos: 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball Markus Burton through the years at Penn High School
• ABC 57, “Penn student, Notre Dame commit named 2023 Mr. Basketball” April 20, 2023
• WNDU, “Penn’s Markus Burton named 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball” April 19, 2023
• WSBT, “Penn’s Markus Burton wins 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball award” April 19, 2023

Penn posted a 28-2 record in 2022-2023. The Kingsmen reached the Final Four of the Class 4-A state tournament, claiming Regional and Sectional Championships along the way. Penn also won the Northern Indiana Conference Championship in the regular season.

Burton, who attended Meadow’s Edge Elementary and Grissom Middle School, expressed his gratitude to the many people he said have helped him on his basketball journey.

“I especially want to thank my Mom and Dad for all of their love and support,” Burton said. “Coach (Al) Rhodes for believing in me, even as a freshman. Thank you to the Penn Coaching Staff and all of my teammates. I also want to thank the Penn community for all of the love and support.”

Penn Boys Basketball Head Coach Al Rhodes, who announced his retirement earlier this week, said that Burton deserves the state’s top honor for a Boys Basketball player.

“Markus Burton is the best high school basketball player in Indiana!” Rhodes said. “It is so fitting that he has been chosen Mr. Basketball. No other player has put in the work that he has. Great things are ahead for Markus as he heads to Notre Dame.”

Rhodes owns the rare distinction of coaching three players who won the Mr. Basketball Award – Burton (2023), Kevin Ault of Warsaw (1996) and Jeff Grose of Warsaw (1985).

Burton owns the Penn career scoring record (2,273 points) and the single-season Penn record (909 points this season). He ranks No. 20 on the all-time Indiana high school boys basketball scoring list. Burton scored in double figures in 57 consecutive games in his career. He scored a career-high 47 points in an 85-51 victory against South Bend Washington on Feb. 10, 2023.

This season, Burton led the state with a scoring average of 30.3 points a game. The Kingsmen Senior ignited a high-flying attack as Penn led the state with an average of 77.9 points a game. Penn also led the state with a 30.0 point average margin of victory.

“I’m grateful to the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association and the Indianapolis Star for this incredible honor,” Burton said. “I want to thank everyone who voted for me. Props to the other candidates – I’m honored to be in their company. I know they worked hard and sacrificed and pursued their dreams.”

Burton won the award over a star-studded list of finalists that included Xavier Booker of Indianapolis Cathedral (Michigan State recruit), Myles Colvin of Heritage Christian (Purdue recruit), Zane Doughty of Indianapolis Ben Davis (Ball State recruit), Joey Hart of Linton-Stockton (Central Florida recruit) and Mason Jones of Valparaiso (Ball State recruit).

Named the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association Most Complete Player, Burton led Penn this season in scoring (30.3 points a game), rebounding (5.7 rebounds a game), assists (5.1 assists a game), and steals (3.6 steals a game).

Burton also earned an IHSAA Sportsmanship Award in the 2022-2023 season, and he is a two-time winner of the Northern Indiana Conference Most Valuable Player Award.

Former Purdue standout and Indiana All-Star Brandon McKnight, who played his high school basketball at South Bend LaSalle and has mentored Burton, said that Burton stood above the state’s greatest players this season.

“Markus deserves Mr. Basketball because he has been the most consistent player in the state of Indiana,” McKnight said. “There is not another player who can impact the game with offense, defense, passing like him.”

In an interview with Kyle Neddenriep of the Indianapolis Star prior to the state finals, Head Coach John Peckinpaugh of state runner-up Kokomo said of Burton, “He’s the best guard I’ve seen in this state in a while. His ability to make tough shots is unreal and he does a great job of making teammates better.”

Burton, the first Penn Boys Basketball player named to the Indiana All-Star Team, will lead the 2023 Hoosier contingent in their two games against the Kentucky All-Stars. The Indiana All-Stars play Kentucky in Owensboro, Ky., on June 9. Indiana hosts the historic All-Star contest on June 10 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the home of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers. Penn’s Kristi Ulrich is the head coach of the Indiana Girls All-Star Team.

Penn High School’s “Short Hair Because We Care” club held a hair donation event on Saturday, April 15. This year’s event brought in 35 donors who donated more than 200 inches of hair!

This year’s event was the 2^nd held at Penn High School, but the student group actually got the idea in middle school, so this is the event’s 4^th year and biggest year yet.

Students partnered with Salon Noveau to cut volunteers’ hair for free. Anyone in the community could donate their hair, as long as they had a minimum is 8 inches of hair. 

The hair was donated to Children With Hair Loss, a nonprofit organization that provides hair replacements at no cost to children or young adults facing hair loss. Whatever the cause, hair loss can have effects that go deeper than cosmetics. 

A Photo Gallery is posted  below.

Three Penn High School students – Charles Dunn (junior), Leah Moore (sophomore), and Julie Rice (freshman) – were selected among a number of area junior and high school script submissions to be a part of the 2023 Michiana Young Playwrights Project through University of Notre Dame’s Film, Television, and Theatre department.

These students’ plays — “VerMillion,” “Hoaxed & Haunted,” and “Deny Thy Poet and Butcher Thy Play,” respectively — will be performed as a staged reading by ND FTT students.

This is especially exciting news, as these students, along with 12 other Penn Theatre students, are also having their pieces performed in Penn’s Center for the Performing Arts in the Student-Written Play Festival on Thursday, April 13, and Friday, 14, at 7 p.m.

Photos posted below.

Tickets are $5 for the Student-Written Play Festival at Penn: https://www.ticketracker.com/store/selecteventtickets/159067

According to Penn Theatre Teacher Kathryn Hein, “We are excited to be able to offer our young playwrights this opportunity to see their work presented up on stage, be it by their peers or university students.”

The Young Playwrights Project performance will take place on Friday, May 5 at 7 p.m. in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center’s Philbin Studio Theatre on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The reading is free and open to the public, but tickets are required, and can be reserved on the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center website.

Penn-Harris-Madison’s commitment to providing academic excellence is being recognized on the state and national level again. Penn Math teacher Dr. Richard Robinson was recently selected as an Indiana Finalist for the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST).

Dr. Robinson is one of three Indiana secondary mathematics teachers eligible to receive a PAEMST award, the nation’s highest honor for U.S. K–12 science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and/or computer science teachers. The awards program is administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

State Finalists represent the most outstanding teachers Indiana has to offer and serve as both a model and an inspiration to students and fellow teachers. This is the third time P-H-M has had teachers recognized as a PAEMST award winner. Elsie Rogers teacher Amanda Fox won in 2022 last year for Math; and Penn Biology Teacher John Gensic was recognized in 2019 for Science.

Here at Penn High School, we are EXTREMELY proud of the talent and hard work of our Theater department as well as our Center for the Performing Arts.

In this video, students and staff discuss why they love theatre. They will also touch on how their involvement develops skills that they will carry on after they graduate high school.

From the teachers and students, to the actors to the technical staff, thousands of hours of work are put in over the course of a year to make sure each and every performance has the utmost display of professionalism.

During the 2022-23 school year, we put on a regional competition play in November and then the full length version of that play in February (“God’s Diary,” by Emily Claire Schmitt).

Every March we put on an annual Spring Musical. This year we had the pleasure to perform “Cinderella”. Not only was Cinderella performed to the public on 3 occasions, shorter performances were also held for elementary students from throughout our district.

In April of 2023, we will host a 10-Minute Student-Written Play Festival. For the student-produced play festival, 11 students are directing plays that 15 students wrote. There will be 34 students performing in these short plays with student technicians helping to run the show.

In addition to our paid staff, we have a leadership team in the form of a Drama Board. Our Drama Board consists of 9 student leaders who help to run the monthly Drama Club.

There have been over 80 actors performing on the Penn stage this year, with around 25 students actively working in tech and crew positions. 

While what you see and hear on the stage is important, a production wouldn’t be complete without a top-notch orchestral accompaniment.  Our CPA is equipped with a pit that allows musicians from our award-winning orchestra to accompany the stage productions.  

Further, we currently have 112 students enrolled in all of the Theatre classes offered at Penn High School: Theatre Arts, Advanced Theatre Arts, Advanced Acting, Technical Theatre, and Advanced Technical Theatre.

We are thrilled to share our student actors with such area groups as South Bend Civic Theatre, Premier Theatre, Art 4, SBCSC Summerfly, United Youth Theatre, Saint Mary’s College, and Acting Ensemble.

The department was also invited to go to see “West Side Story” at the Morris Performing Arts Center last October.

To keep track of our upcoming shows as well as to buy tickets, check out our page at Ticket Tracker.com!

Penn’s “Short Hair Because We Care” plans to hold a hair donation event for the Children With Hair Loss organization on Saturday, April 15, 2023,  in Penn High School’s cafeteria during the girls Lacrosse game from 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Anyone in the community can donate their hair, but the minimum is 8 inches of hair. Hair that is colored and permed is accepted. Local professional hair stylists will be donating their time to cut volunteers hair for free. Because this is for hair donation, the service provided is just a simple cut, no style.

If interested in donating take a look at our link tree: https://linktr.ee/shbwc and sign up on the Google form if you are interested.

Email shbwcphs@gmail.com with questions, and follow the group on Instagram at @shbwc_phs. 

Children With Hair Loss is a nonprofit organization that provides hair replacements at no cost to children or young adults facing hair loss. Whatever the cause, hair loss can have effects that go deeper than cosmetics. Providing this hair is how this organization gives back to the community. You can help us give back to your community and the children facing hair loss by donating your hair or simply spreading the word about the event to everyone! 

Penn High School principal Sean Galiher honored Seniors and Juniors who were named Academic Achievement Award winners for the 2022-2023 school year.

Students earn the Academic Achievement Award for maintaining a grade-point average of 3.5 or better over four or six semesters, without receiving a D or an F. 

Check out the video and photo gallery below: