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. This is the final, long delayed installment in the series and I saved my favorite one for last: Harold Ramis.

Harold was born in Chicago on November 21, 1944. He was known as “Hershey” during his Senn days and sang in the school choir. One of his classmates described Harold as a “nice nerd.” After high school he attended Washington University in St. Louis.

After graduation Harold worked in a mental institution for seven months, which he said prepared him for working with actors. “People laugh when I say that, but it was actually very good training. And not just with actors; it was good training for just living in the world. It’s knowing how to deal with people who might be reacting in a way that’s connected to anxiety or grief or fear or rage. As a director, you’re dealing with that constantly with actors. But if I were a businessman, I’d probably be applying those same principles to that line of work.”

Harold wrote humorous plays in college. While working as a substitute teacher in Chicago he started taking classes at Second City and eventually joined the main cast. This led to him being part of The National Lampoon Radio Hour and eventually the TV show SCTV, where he performed and was head writer for three years.

Leaving for Hollywood, Harold quickly found work co-writing Animal House and Meatballs before directing his first film, Caddyshack. He followed that up by co-writing and costarring in two big Bill Murray hits, Stripes and Ghostbusters.

in 1993 Harold wrote and directed Groundhog Day, one of my favorite movies. He followed that up with some hits (Multiplicity and Analyze This) and some flops (Stuart Saves His Family).

In 2003 Harold returned to Senn, where he was “principal for a day.” The school auditorium (also used for performances) is named after him.

Sadly, Harold developed autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis in 2010, and passed away in 2014. President Barack Obama said in a statement: “When we watched his movies —from Animal House and Caddyshack to Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day— we didn’t just laugh until it hurt. We questioned authority. We identified with the outsider. We rooted for the underdog. And through it all, we never lost our faith in happy endings.”