South Philadelphia High School will honor a half-dozen distinguished students and athletes during its annual Hall of Fame inductions at Anthony’s Caterers’ IATSE Ballroom on May 19.
The event will be held from 1-5 p.m. and will honor graduates Frank Strati, Pete Galiano, Tyrone Truitt, Phillip Giambri, Charlotte Blake Alston and David Berg.
Tickets ($60) to the banquet can be purchased at https://www.sphsalumni.com/.
Frank Strati
During his time at South Philadelphia High School, Frank Strati majored in art education and played on the varsity baseball and football teams for three years, captaining both squads. Strati, a pitcher and centerfielder, led Southern’s 1982 baseball team to an appearance in the Public League championship.
Strati was selected to the All-Public football team and baseball team all three years at Southern. On the football field, Strati helped the Rams defeat Bishop Neumann, 7-6 on Thanksgiving Day in 1980 by scoring the lone touchdown.
A Temple University grad, Strati played on its baseball team as an outfielder, playing alongside childhood friend John Marzano, who went onto play in Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox.
Strati made his career in Philadelphia’s hospitality industry for over 40 years and is the manager of Dante & Luigi’s, one of Philadelphia’s premier Italian restaurants.
Pete Galiano
Pete played football and baseball from 1973-76. A 2-year varsity starter in baseball for coach John Pendino, he was a part of the city championship team in 1975 and Public League finalist in 1976. On the gridiron, Galiano quarterbacked the football team to a 5-5 record during his senior year.
Off the field, Galiano was a member of the choir, participating in three musicals: Guys and Dolls, Carnival and Mame. Galiano graduated from Temple University and Eastern College and has coached baseball and football for over 30 years, spending time at Camden Catholic in New Jersey and Everglades High School in Florida, in the state where he now resides.
After leaving the mortgage industry, Galiano became an education adviser for Kaplan University, which was later purchased by Purdue University Global, where he remains an employee. Peter has three children and six grandchildren.
Tyrone Truitt
A 1977 graduate, Truitt was a three-year varsity letter winner on the Southern track team. In 1976, he tied the school record for the 100-yard dash with a time of 9.9 seconds. In that same year he broke the school record for the 220-yard dash with a time of 21.9 seconds. Truitt was known for his tenacity during track meets. Truitt also played on the junior varsity football team during his sophomore and junior years under coach Paul Delvecchia.
During his time at Southern, Truitt participated in other extra-curricular activities, including the South Philadelphia High School choir and dance ensemble and was a cast member in the production of the play Damn Yankees in 1977.
Phillip Giambri
Also known as “The Ancient Mariner,” Phillip Giambri left home at 18 and never looked back. His 2022 memoir Good Boy, Bad Boy, A Better Man covers his life’s journey from South Philadelphia in the 1940s to New York City’s East Village in the ’70s.
Giambri produced several works including novelettes and chapbooks and curated a popular monthly spoken word/poetry event, Rimes of The Ancient Mariner. He was associate producer for the Off-Broadway production of Intrusion as well as producing and curating collaborative staged events.
Giambri was the 2022 Nassau County Poet Laureate Society poetry contest winner and a 2020 Acker Award recipient for Storytelling and Community Service. He is also a veteran of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force (1959-1963), a life member of Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, International Submariners Association and United States Submarine Veterans Inc. He is also a member of Actor’s Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild.
Charlotte Blake Alston
A 1965 graduate, Charlotte Blake Alston is an internationally acclaimed storyteller, narrator and librettist who has made multiple appearances at the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and numerous festivals around the country including the National Storytelling Festival, the National Festival of Black Storytelling and the Timpanogos Festival and has been a presenter at festivals all over the world.
Alston has performed at both presidential and gubernatorial inaugural festivities and was one of two storytellers selected to perform at the weekend opening of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
For 17 years, she was the featured host, storyteller and narrator on the Carnegie Hall Family and School Concert series and performed as an artist for the Lincoln Center Institute.
She has been commissioned to create both sung and narrative texts for Opera Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Carnegie Hall, Opera North, the Commonwealth Youthchoirs and Singing City and has appeared as a narrator for numerous orchestras around the country.
Alston has received numerous honors and awards including the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Commonwealth of PA Artist of the Year Award, the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence Award, the Zora Neale Hurston Award, two Best of Philly awards and two honorary Ph.d’s. In 2021 she was named the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Official Storyteller, Narrator and Host.
David Berg
David Berg is Emeritus Professor of the Psychology Department at Community College Of Philadelphia where he was the recipient of the Lindback Foundation Award for excellence in college teaching.
Berg maintained a private practice in clinical psychology for 30 years that served South Philadelphia. After his retirement from the college (47 years) and his private practice, he returned to Temple’s Ambler campus where he then studied floral design and has been a volunteer at the PHS Flower Show in Philly for several decades.
Berg has served on several boards of nonprofit community organizations, and is currently on the Board of The Little Shul in South Philadelphia with the goal to help bring worship services to the community at little or no cost.
Berg serves on the American Psychological Association Division for the Society of the Teaching of Psychology. He has been a longstanding member of the American Psychological Association and the Pennsylvania Psychological Association as well as the South Philadelphia High School Alumni.
While in 10th grade in Dr. Arnold Giusini’s biology class, he won an award for growing the best mold and was featured in the Southern newspaper and South Philly Review as “Mr. Mold.” In earnest, with the sponsorship of Dr. Giusini, David was a winner at the Delaware Valley Science Fair. The award sent David and Dr. Giusini to Chicago for the 1963 National Youth Conference on the Atom. At his June 1965 graduation ceremony, David was the recipient of the South Philadelphia Alumni Association Scholarship.
