DETROIT – Do you remember the motto of your high school graduation class?
Vicki Granger does, and she graduated in 1966 from Warren (then Harper Woods) Regina High School.
She was one of 213 educators who are serving or have served 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55 years in the Archdiocese of Detroit and were recognized Oct. 25 at the Catholic High School League’s Prep Bowl LIII at Ford Field. Granger was the lone celebrant in the 55-year level.
Granger has been at Warren De La Salle Collegiate since 1982. Before that, she taught at Bishop Gallagher High School (in Harper Woods), Our Lady of LaSalette School (in Berkley), and Dominican High School (in Detroit), and served as principal of Servite High School (in Detroit).
“My path was probably set in high school at Regina, and our class motto was ‘Take the world as you find it and leave it better,’” she said. “The mission we have is to produce students who will be good citizens, good family members, whether they be husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, people who are good and always remember that we have a duty to give back to others and to help others.”
Granger was in the classroom at De La Salle until 2004. She headed the English Department, including honors and advanced placement courses, moderated the school newspaper and the National Honor Society, and served as academic affairs coordinator, with responsibilities including honors banquets and graduations.
Since 2004, in a variety of assignments, she has managed and/or assisted the website, public relations, and parent and alumni emails, the alumni magazine as well as social media accounts.
Granger is a member of the advancement department.
“We're working on our 100th anniversary (in 2026) right now,” Granger said. “A lot of archival stuff is in boxes in my office waiting for me to bring it out.”
“Many of the women that I graduated with from Regina are involved in all kinds of charitable works,” Granger added. “It's very gratifying to me to have taught so many kids over the years and to have remained friends with many of them and have taught their grandchildren. I'm glad I can be there as a person that they can talk to and trust.”
Granger is an active member of her community. She has served on the Grosse Pointe Woods City Council since 1997 and is running unopposed for an eighth consecutive term this fall. She is a member of the Friends of the Grosse Pointe Library and the League of Women Voters.
She and her husband, Mike (an Austin Catholic grad), will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next summer. Their sons are De La Salle graduates: Sean in 1995, Brian in 1999. They also have three grandchildren.
Vic Michaels honored for an ‘exemplary commitment’ to the Catholic League
The latest award of many that Vic Michaels has received in his role as the director of the Catholic High School League was celebrated at the CHSL Prep Bowl LIII at Ford Field Oct. 25.
Michaels is the recipient of the 2025 Jack Johnson Distinguished Service Award made by the Michigan High School Coaches Association, the professional organization for high school coaches and athletic directors, in recognition of Michaels’ “exemplary commitment” based on years of program performance and significant contributions to sport, school, and community.
A year earlier, at the CHSL Coaches Association Hall of Fame banquet, Michaels was named a “Catholic High School League Legend,” only the 15th so honored in the Hall of Fame’s 50-year history.
Michaels, 70, has had a relationship with the Catholic League for all but four years since 1968, when he was a 13-year-old freshman at St. Phillip High School. When St. Phillip closed, he transferred to St. Ambrose, a 1972 grad. He spent the next four years at Detroit Tech on a basketball scholarship.
He resumed his ties with the Catholic League in a 17-year stretch (1978-1995) as teacher, boys and girls basketball coach, athletic director and assistant principal at St. Clement High School in Center Line.
He was an associate director of the CHSL for eight years. Upon Tom Rashid’s retirement in 2003, Michaels became the CHSL’s seventh ─ and currently longest serving ─ director. Since then, Michaels has represented nonpublic schools on the Michigan High School Athletics Association Representative Council and serves as the council’s secretary-treasurer and a member of the executive committee.
Rashid, who died in 2021, said about Michaels: “His success comes from integrity in dealing with others; from trust that he has earned through fair and honest interaction with students, coaches, officials, parents, administrators and business people.”
Michaels met his wife, Linda, at St. Ambrose High School. They have been married for 46 years. Their sons, Marc and Brad, attended Harper Woods Notre Dame, and their wives, Lia and Stephanie, respectively, are Warren Regina alums.
Contact Don Horkey at [email protected]
