South has been the home to several famous alumni including Patrick Stump and Brian Hansen. Those ties stretch even further with current South students who are related to famous people.
Junior Addie Lyon is second cousins with comedian and actor Joel McHale. According to Lyon, McHale is the host of the E! Network Show “The Soup,” stars in the NBC comedy series “Community” and has had small roles in movies like Spider Man 3 and Seth McFarlane’s comedy Ted. With all of this under his belt, Lyon describes McHale as a busy guy.
“[McHale] has two little boys, so it’s hard for [his family] to get together with [ours] when we have family events and stuff like that,” Lyon said. “But I probably see him once or twice a year, maybe [more] if I babysit his kids.”
Similar to Lyon, sophomore Nicole Schreiber also knows what it’s like to be closely related to someone famous. According to Schreiber, her dad’s best friend, who she and her siblings call their uncle, is Brian Glazer, owner of the English soccer team Manchester United and the Florida football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Schreiber and her family are very close to Glazer.
“He’s always really nice, and whenever we see him he’s always really generous,” Schreiber said. “He doesn’t really affect us as a celebrity. He’s just a really genuine and good person.”
According to Schreiber, Glazer is a very busy person. He has houses in Chicago, Florida and England, and Schreiber loves visiting him in Chicago.
“We go to the Manchester United Games when they come to Chicago to play the [Chicago] Fire,” Schreiber said. “It’s kind of cool we get to sit in the owner’s box and see how he interacts with the team.”
Juniors Katie Hauldren and Hailey Hauldren are granddaughters of Lynn Hauldren. Although the name might not imply much, he was the man in the Empire Carpet commercials and is nicknamed “The Empire Carpet Guy.” According to Katie, Lynn was in the commercials during the 1970s and 1980s, having obtained the role due to Empire Carpet not being able to find an actor for the commercials. Lynn has since been replaced by an animation modeled after him and later his own bobblehead.
According to Katie, she was very close to Lynn and always saw him as a normal person despite people recognizing him every once in a while.
Although Schreiber and Katie do not see their relatives as any different than their family, Lyon describes family events with McHale in attendance as different than others.
“I feel like when his family is there [that] it kind of changes the whole family dynamic,” Lyon said. “My cousins and I will get photos with him and post them on Instagram and Facebook knowing like, ‘Oh, he’s famous so it’s cool that I’m posting this.’”
According to Lyon, she and her family are not very affected by the media surrounding McHale but says it can be strange at times for them to see him on TV or on other forms of media.
“It’s weird,” Lyon said. “If I’m hanging out with my friends and all of a sudden on the TV he’s doing some commercial or something like that and I’m like, ‘Oh, there’s Joel!’”
