Forest Hills Central’s very own Public Address Announcer, Charles Heeringa, has had a long history of announcing sporting events but is now in his first year at FHC; he absolutely loves it.

“I began announcing about 20 years ago at Creston High School,” Heeringa said. “I was then the announcer at Northern for about a decade and retired shortly after that.”

Besides his great ability to announce sporting events here and in the past, Charlie used to be a great softball player. In fact, he is widely known around the state of Michigan as one of the better softball players in the past.

“I’ve been recognized by a lot of people for playing softball,” Heeringa said. “I am an All-American and in three halls of fame for softball.”

Although he retired nearly ten years ago, when new Athletic Supervisor Jonathon Goei was hired by FHC, the school was still looking for a new announcer. Mr. Goei has gotten to know Heeringa through a lot of meetings and his outstanding work at Northern. But where the two really met was when Heeringa’s daughter and Goei’s wife used to dance together at Ballet Memphis. Because of that close relationship between Goei and Heeringa, it was only a matter of time before Heeringa was asked to announce yet again.

“I was happily retired, and then I got a call from Mr. Goei,” Heeringa said. “He asked me if I was interested in announcing here at FHC. I have known him for a long time and knew it would be great, so I agreed and started that week.”

Along with his passion for announcing, Heeringa has an interest in gritty, loud high school basketball games. With many great indoor-sports teams here at FHC, Heeringa has had his fair share of big games to announce. Some great examples are the district finals for volleyball against FHN or even more recently with a boys varsity basketball thriller to open the season against Forest Hills Eastern. In the end, he is always grateful that he has the best seat in the house, even though he volunteers to announce the games.

“I have the best seat in the house,” Charlie said. “FHC has some great coaches, and the players and teams here work extremely hard; the games are fun to watch.”

In the jungle, while the student section is booming and concessions are getting overrun, students are bound to hear the excitement in the voice of Mr. Charlie Heeringa. FHC fans can’t thank him enough for all the great work he has done without a single paycheck.