I graduated from Senn High School in 1980. Located on Chicago’s North Side, Senn is a fairly typical inner-city public high school, except for the fact that a lot of famous and semi-famous people graduated from there. Today let’s meet one that you won’t be able to stop reading about: author John Jakes, class of ’49.
After high school John went to DePauw University and Ohio State University, While he was still in college, John was writing short stories for science fiction magazines and went on to write several science fiction and fantasy stories and novels, including the Brak the Barbarian series.
In the 1970s John switched to writing historical fiction, beginning with The Bastard, the first entry in the Kent Family Chronicles. The book was a big success and John wrote several other novels in the same series. In the 1980s he sold even more books when he published the North and South trilogy, which became a hit TV miniseries that helped make Patrick Swayze a star.
John passed away last year at the age of 90. His books have sold over 120 million copies. Does that make him the most successful author to have attended Senn? No, it does not, but that’s a topic for another day.