At 7 p.m. on Friday, June 8, in the high school auditorium, 138 seniors from Tyrone Area High School will receive their diplomas in Tyrone’s 123rd graduation ceremonies.
Principle speaker for this event will be 1987 Tyrone Valedictorian, Harvard Graduate, and Altoona Surgeon Dr. Matthew Evans Newlin. Class Salutatorian Jenna Dillon will introduce Dr. Newlin. Her Valedictorian sister Caitlinn will deliver The Farewell Address to The Class Of 2007. Thirty-six-year veteran Tyrone School Superintendent William Miller also will speak as will retiring Assistant Superintendent Joann Lang, who served as one of Newlin’s elementary teachers, in the late seventies at Lincoln School.
Certainly Dr. Newlin comes as no stranger to Tyrone High School’s Auditorium Stage. Twenty years ago in June 1987, Newlin stood on the high school stage and delivered The Farewell Address to his graduating class, because he ranked first in that class of 204 students. Besides that honor, Tyrone’s Commencement Speaker also served as editor of his 1987 yearbook, dedicated to Tyrone’s long-celebrated Latin teacher Mr. George Everett Wilbur. Newlin’s high school yearbook offered this information about him – “He enjoys playing sports, desires to become a lawyer, and he wants to lead a successful life.”
From Valedictorian at Tyrone High, Newlin journeyed onward to pursue a degree in economics from Harvard University in Massachusetts. For citizens unaware of it, this man was the first graduate in Tyrone history to transition directly from high school to Harvard University. At Harvard, Newlin majored in economics, became president of the Harvard Classics Basketball Team, and graduated from there with Honors in 1991.
In 1994, after three years in the business world, Newlin made the momentous decision to depart business and to enroll in Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, where he enthusiastically would pursue a second career as a medical doctor.
Following his graduation from Jefferson Medical College in 1998, Tyrone’s guest speaker fulfilled his residency requirements in general surgery at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, until the year 2003.
Then from 2003 to 2004, he joined the medical team at Ohio State University Medical Center, where he specialized in Advanced Laparoscopic Surgery and performed clinical, academic and research duties.
Three years ago, in 2004, Dr. Newlin returned from Columbus, Ohio to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he became a partner in Lexington Surgical Associates, and also a member of the surgical team at Altoona Regional Health System.
Tyrone’s honored guest has published in numerous medical journals and has delivered medical presentations, both locally and nationally. At the present time, he resides in Hollidaysburg, with his veterinarian wife, Dr. Laura Lake, herself a 1993 graduate of Tyrone Area High School. The couple has one son named Noah Lake Newlin.
Dr. Newlin is the eldest son of Attorney and Mrs. Edward Newlin of Warriors Mark. In addition to his parents, Dr. Newlin’s in-laws Colonel and Mrs. George Lake also reside in Warriors Mark. Dr. Newlin has a younger brother named Nathaniel, a 1990 Tyrone High Valedictorian and also a graduate of Harvard University.
In his 1987 Tyrone yearbook, Dr. Newlin shared the dream that he wanted to lead a successful life. At 7 p.m. on June 8, in Tyrone High’s Auditorium, 138 hopeful students who comprise this community’s 123rd high school graduating class will gather for their commencement, committed to the hope that Dr. Newlin will share with them some of the secrets of a successful life in his talk entitled “The Seat of the Soul”.
