Remembering LHS Graduate Ross Reynolds
May 27, 2022
Ross Reynolds was a student from Leominster High School who wanted to be a pilot. He graduated in 2013 and eventually earned his wings as a Marine Corp Captain.
On March 19, 2022, Reynolds along with 3 other Marines, was killed during NATO training in Norway. The cities of both Leominster and Fitchburg turned out to line the streets of town to welcome home his remains.
He was also honored by his high school family, where veteran teachers lowered the school flag to half-mast upon learning the news of his passing.
Dr. Steven Dubzinski, Principal of Leominster High School, said that he knew Ross very well because he was his guidance counselor at the time Ross was a student at Leominster High School.
“Ross Reynolds was good young man. He was upstanding, as fun and funny and personal, smart, and just a great representative of Leominster High School,” said Dubzinski.
“There are two parts of this,” he added. “It is awful and very, very, sad when obviously anyone young dies, and there is a great part of this story that Ross was doing something he loved. He only wanted to be a marine pilot. That what his goal in high school. That was what he put in the yearbook, and if there is a silver lining here, it is that he was doing what he loved to do.”
Ross Reynolds always wanted to be a marine pilot and defend our country. He played volleyball at Leominster High School, but he was more involved in being an Eagle Scout because it was what he liked to do.
CTEi teacher Todd Rathier said “unfortunately, I didn’t have him at any classes.”
They met each other outside of LHS at a boy scout summer camp called Wanocksett Camp where he served as a master for the Boy Scouts of America for 13 years. He had known Ross for around 10 years. He was a mentor for Ross Reynolds as he worked for his Eagle Scout.
“Ross was a good student because he had a lot of drive, he was a great kid and awesome,” said Rathier
“He was a very outgoing kid,” he added. “He had a lot of drive, good leadership abilities, and he was the type of kid I could hand a task to do, and I know it will get done.”
Rathier was one of the veterans who lowered the flag in Ross’s honor.
Another teacher who spoke fondly of Captain Reynolds was his English teacher Karen Nazor.
“Ross Reynolds was a student in my Honors World Studies and Honors Senior English classes,” she shared. “I was privileged to teach him 2011-12, 2012-13.”
“During the summer in between, he invited me to his Order of the Arrow Ceremony and to witness his Eagle Dance at a Boy Scout Camp in NH,” she said. “He told me to bring my children as he thought they’d enjoy it. He was correct ~ the scouts arriving by canoe at dusk, shooting flaming arrows into a teepee of dry timber, and the drumming during his dance~ it was an enchanting evening. His goal for the night was to have me see him not as a student, but as an Eagle Scout who was months away from earning that distinction. He wanted the experience to inform the college recommendation letter he’d requested that I write. ”
