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Denise Tomanski Meyer    Inducted 2025 - Class of 1968

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By the time she was in the 8th grade at St. Adalbert, Denise Tomanski Meyer’s teachers noted she had a gift for writing. The educators she encountered at Woodward had a profound impact on her and many left a lasting impression on her and further fostered her writing talents. The encouragement she received from her teachers Susan Hoffman and David McMurray turned Denise’s fantasy notion of being a writer into a serious goal and set her on her writing journey. Through her work on The Tattler under the direction of Elaine Markopoulos, she learned to streamline her writing and create interesting feature articles. She incorporates the lessons she learned in her writing to this day. Denise was also an active participant in the Extravaganzas each year and her experiences there led to a longtime enjoyment and involvement in theater.

Denise attended the University of Toledo and began her career in education as a Language Arts Teacher for Washington Local Schools before transitioning to a career working in various capacities in communications, advertising, and marketing. She is the recipient of over 75 industry awards for creativity in advertising including six Addy Awards- the advertising world’s equivalent of an Oscar.

She has also worked in political campaign development in the Toledo area including authoring Mayor Jack Ford’s first State of the City Address and as a volunteer with Life Connection of Ohio speaking out about organ donation. She married her late husband, James Patrick Meyer, Sr., and together they had two children, Rachel (Matt) Peterson and James Patrick Meyer, Jr. Denise is also the proud grandmother of five grandchildren, Noel, Ariel, Rose, Lydia, and James Steven.

Denise retired in 2015 and currently lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. She has continued to write and is the published author of five books. It was the untimely passing of her husband that was the catalyst for her most personal work, “Dying to Stay.” The creative, nonfiction book is about their love story and his death and has received the greatest accolades of her books. She is currently working on completing three other novels. 

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