listing/roster of Charleroi, Pennsylvania High School Graduates/Alumni


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    THE 90's
      Rachel Podwika, '90
      Jason Slezak, '96
      Bob Stevenson, '96
      Dan LaCarte & Amanda Spina, '99
      Carrie Zelinsky Campbell, '95
      Vince Russell & George Watkins, '91

High Flyin' Adventure... By Chris Buckley, VALLEY INDEPENDENT, October 16, 2004
Ask Jason Slezak if he is living the life of his dreams, he'll reply gleefully "definitely...it's a good thing."

Ever since the 1996 Charleroi Area High School graduate first started snowboarding at Willowbrook Golf Course in Rostraver Township during the winter, he knew he had to have adventure in his profession as well as his life.

It's a long way from a Mid-Mon Valley golf course or even Seven Springs and Hidden Valley ski resorts to the ocean waters off Cape Hatteras Island, N.C. and the Hawaiian Islands or even Australia.

But Slezak has made the transition smoothly and is enjoying every minute of it.

Today, Slezak is an instructor for kiteboarding, a sport that didn't even exist while he was growing up or even when he was earning a degree from Adventures Sports Institute in Maryland - a business degree with an emphasis on adventure sports.

"At the time, I had a major passion for snowboarding and hoped to pursue it as a career," Slezak recalled.

Slezak was an avid extreme sports fanatic, even before the first X Games competitions. He learned how to ride a skateboard as a youth and by age 17 began spending his summers surfing in Ocean City, Md.

But he didn't see a kiteboard for the first time until after he had moved to North Carolina. Slezak was working for a windsurfing company when a manufacturer gave him a kiteboard and told him to try it out.

Kiteboarding is a cross between surfing and wakeboarding, but with a kite in place of a sail, Slezak said.

Today, Slezak is employed as an instructor for Real Kiteboarding, the largest school and kiteboarding-exclusive business in the country. He has been with the company since its inception.

The company's instructors taught the sport to nearly 6,000 people last year, mostly tourists. The business is marketed to bring tourists to the North Carolina coast to learn the sport that they take home to such areas as the Great Lakes or western Pennsylvania.

When he isn't teaching kiteboarding, Slezak is traveling across the country and even abroad promoting it. He has been to Hawaii and the Caribbean and last year to Europe, making videos and conducting other media-based promotions for the products.

He did a live interview on "The Today Show" earlier this year.

Beginning next month, Slezak will tour Australia, promoting the Liquid Force brand of kiteboards. He will make appearances in shops and end the tour with a four-day competition in southeast Australia.

At these competitions, riders are judged based on the freestyle moves they display.

Although the sport is "fairly physically demanding," Slezak said he plans to continue teaching, touring and competing for a few years. Ultimately, he would like to get into the business operations of the field.

Chris Buckley can be reached at cbuckley@tribweb.com or (724) 684-2642.