The North Shore Weekend August 22, 2020

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LIFESTYLE & ARTS College of Lake County celebrates the work of African American artists P12 FOLLOW US:

NO. 410 | A JWC MEDIA PUBLICATION

SELLING TIME CO-OWNERS TED BANICK AND BRIAN CARMAN PUT DELIGHTFULLY DISTINCTIVE HIGHWOOD BAR TEDDY O’BRIAN’S ON THE BLOCK AFTER MEMORABLE TWO-DECADE RUN. Ted Banick PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN BRIGGS

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The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verification. Real estate agents affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker Realty. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker Realty fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Owned by a subsidiary of NRT LLC. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker Logo are registered service marks owned by Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC.

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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INDEX

NEWS 12 virtual collection

A College of Lake County exhibit celebrates African American artists

LIFESTYLE & ARTS 14 a sort of homecoming

New Trier alumnus and Wilmette native Shannon Burke brings his hometown to life in new book

15 north shorts

Life on Mars

16 building happinest

Stephanie Klein's new business helps people sort through a lifetime of possessions

LAST BUT NOT LEAST 18 sunday breakfast

Listening helps Highland Park resident and NBC newsman Kevin Tibbles get to the heart of his broadcast segments

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Enjoy Your Own Backyard

L

ooking at the positive of everything going on, we now have more time to experience the things right outside our front door. With less scheduled and the inability to travel afar, there is a whole world right in our own towns that

we forget in the chaos of everyday life. In the North Shore, there are so many areas that you can explore, whether it be beaches, parks, nature, or culture, each town offers its residents something different. With life being stressful, it is important to take the time to enjoy and reflect and to live in a home and neighborhood where you feel comfortable. If you are looking for a change of scenery into another North Shore suburb or somewhere else entirely, I can help you find these gems to enjoy and make you feel at home.

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THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

SSATURDAY AUGUST 22 | SUNDAY AUGUST 23 2020|

9

NEWS SELLING TIME

From PG 1

The clock behind the bar at Teddy O’Brian’s in Highwood is always 20 minutes, at least, ahead of the real time. “Bar time,” people in the industry call it.

“It’s easier to move people out near closing time when they think it’s later than it is,” co-owner Ted Banick explains. “There’s an easy way for us to tell when our clock’s batteries are low.

“Time on the clock,” the 48-year-old adds, “is closer to the actual time.”

It’s time for Banick and Brian Carman, a pair of Mundelein residents and buddies since their Deerfield High School days, to end their impressive 21-year run as co-owners of the inimitable haunt formerly known as Rainbows and sell it. The tavern on Sheridan Road fea-

usually give him the remote.”

The impetus for Banick and Carman to “last call” themselves as bar bosses was the itch to pivot, mainly.

“Everything’s changing,” Banick says. “The whole world is changing. People are re-evaluating their lives, thinking, ‘How do I want to live, to work, during a time like this?’ Brian and I were young, only 28, when we bought the bar and opened it in late 1999. Maybe young people will buy this from us and put a new spin on it and do it for a long time like we did.

“Our story is a success story,” he adds. “You can’t look at it any other way—two good f riends, running a steady business at a spot that isn’t obscure, and living viable lives for two decades. But it’s time to move on, to do something else.”

Marty Jischke, born and raised in Lake Forest, serves as bar manager at Abigail’s in

with the exact number of walks of life. But plop yourself down from Minute 1 to Closing Time any day of the week at Teddy O’Brian’s and you’d encounter a substantial majority of the walks, hands down.

“If you drive a $500,000 car or ride only a bike, you’d be able to strike up a conversation with anybody in Teddy’s and feel comfortable for as long as you’re in there,” says Eric Verdonk, a former Lake Bluff resident and another LFHS graduate (Class of ’95). “It’s welcoming. It’s comfortable. The people who work there, the people drinking and eating there, they make you feel right at home as soon as you enter.

“It’s been a Highwood staple for so long,” continues Verdonk, who bartended at Teddy O’Brian’s for a summer. “There’s nothing like it, and it’s the ideal spot to reunite with old friends.”

How warm and reliable is the ambience at

ably priced. Our vibe is what people like; there’s energy, everywhere. It’s a good place to hang.”

With compelling, throw-back images covering nearly every inch of the bar’s walls. They greet, silently, first-time patrons, who typically feed their eyes and stretch their necks near the walls before they about-face and think about dousing their palates. There’s a blackand-white picture of former Boston Celtics great Larry Bird tangling with former Philadelphia 76ers great Julius Erving. There’s a photo of Archie and Edith Bunker, not far from that riveting shot of Michael Jordan, in midflight, re-entering the bottom of the stratosphere during a dunk at Chicago Stadium.

Who hasn’t snickered or blurted “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk” at the sight of Teddy’s framed pic of Stooges Moe, Larry, and Curly?

“I remember when Teddy’s was Rainbows,” Verdonk says. “I love the history of the bar.

tures crowded rows of picture frames—containing photos of sports figures and musicians and a range of other iconic entertainers—on its walls, a dimly lit bar area, live bands on Sundays, and bean bags flying across its spacious patio.

The svelte iteration of Norm, f rom the television sitcom Cheers, at Teddy O’Brian’s is a huge fan of the game show Jeopardy! He watches it regularly in the afternoon at his favorite watering hole, and, yes, everybody knows his name: Bob. “We call him ‘TV Bob,’ ” Banick says. “We

Highland Park. He likes to escape every now and then and absorb life on the other side of a bar at Teddy O’Brian’s.

“When I think of Teddy O’Brian’s I think of the patio and the music, especially the jam band Mr. Blotto,” says Jischke, a three-sport athlete at Lake Forest High School (Class of 1998). I also think of the beer deals and the cheeseburgers, as well as all those great photos on the walls. I love the one of Walter Payton pranking fellow Chicago Bears running back Matt Suhey.”

Nobody, to date, has been able to come up

Teddy O’Brian’s, inside and outside? It’s that thick-ish, slightly faded college sweatshirt you throw on because familiar threads bring out the relaxed you, the real you.

“It ’s a down-and-dirty bar that attracts down-to-earth folks,” sums Banick, who, with Carman, opened the restaurant Caboose in Mundelein in 2008 and remodeled it last year, renaming it Teddy O’Brian’s (it serves more food than its namesake in Highwood does).

“For years people have associated our Highwood establishment with good live music and our patio, plus we pour a good drink, reason-

Ted and Brian added to the history of the bar with each picture they put up on a wall. One of the greatest feelings is the feeling I have as soon as I walk in. That has a lot do with the personalities of the owners and the bartenders.

“When they sell it, it would be unfortunate if the new owner or owners were to change the feel of the place,” he adds. “The feel of Teddy O’Brian’s is what makes Teddy O’Brian’s special.”

BY BILL MCLEAN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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Teddy O’Brian’s, is located at 432 Sheridan Road in Highwood, 847-521-3044.

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NEWS

VIRTUAL COLLECTION COLLEGE OF LAKE COUNTY'S ROBERT T. WRIGHT GALLERY OF ART MOUNTS A VIRTUAL EXHIBITION THAT HIGHLIGHTS THE WORK OF AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTISTS, PAST AND PRESENT.

BY MITCH HURST THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Scattered across the three campuses—in Grayslake, Vernon Hills, and Waukegan—of the College of Lake County (CLC) is a permanent collection of art created by some of America's most significant African American artists.

Artists in the collection include former CLC art faculty member Terry Dixon, who passed away last year; retired CLC art professor and painter Reginald Coleman; Dr. Margaret Burroughs, founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History; and, writer, artist, and academic Keith Morrison.

Up until now, you'd have to get in your car, drive to each of the three campuses, and walk the halls of various buildings in order to view and appreciate the collection.

Now you can see a curated selection of the collection all in one place. Robert T. Wright Gallery permanent collections curator Ann Rentz has selected 35 works that showcase black artists—images for which have been digitized and placed online. In addition to

presenting the images, biographies of each artist are also available.

"Given everything that's going on, Brianna Bader (gallery assistant curator) and I were talking and thinking that we'd like to find some way to contribute," Rentz says. "We knew we had several pieces in our permanent collection at the college and we thought that would be a good place to start because they're rarely seen."

Over 800 works are part of the college’s permanent art collection. Significant Illinois artists as well as nationally and internationally recognized artists have had their work featured in the Robert T. Wright Gallery since it opened its doors in 1981. The collection reflects a diverse range in media and style.

Given recent events, the time seemed right to highlight African American artists.

"We wanted to honor the artists and put out what we had so we could make Black voices be better heard," says Rentz. "We were excited to find we had quite a few pieces in our collection, and this art is traditionally underappreciated, so we were motivated to shine the light on it."

A number of the artists featured in the collection were active during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, and their work captures a moment in time when they were using their talents to educate the public LEFT: "Bowling Pin Male Portrait,"

by Gregory “Mr. Imagination” Warmack RIGHT: "Bru," by Terry Dixon BELOW:"Boy Reading," by Margaret T. Burroughs about what was happening.

"Part of me wanted to draw a parallel between what was going on in their day and what's going on today, in a little different way," Rentz says.

For artists— musicians, actors, dancers, painters—a big part of the challenge during the pandemic has been how to continue to find creative outlets for their work when they've been limited to the online world due to orders to stay

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at home. Rentz and the gallery have adapted.

"We were not able to do our annual student show physically in the gallery because of the COVID, so we put the show up virtually," she says. "We saw it as a temporary Band Aid, and then we thought, 'Why can't we do this all the time?' We've planned a complete event schedule for this semester based on the new virtual gallery."

Perhaps the spirit of the new virtual exhibition is best captured by a work titled "Strollers."

The abstract, acrylic work by Keith Morrison, a native of Jamaica who immigrated to the United States to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, features a Black couple walking past a group of youths. Morrison says the piece reflects both the nomadic spirit of the African American experience as well as the search for sense of place.

"In those strollers, it's almost as if they're isolated. The feet to the left suggest they're youngsters, and whether they think the youngsters are menacing or a threat, that tension means they move slightly to the right," Morrison says. "It's like Edward Hopper, in a different way. Hopper is about isolation. It's about isolation and anxiety."

You can view the virtual exhibit, “Showcasing Black Artists” from the CLC Permanent Collection, by visiting clcillinois.com/campus-life/arts/ wright-gallery/black-artists-showcase.

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LIFESTYLE & ARTS

A SORT OF HOMECOMING NEW TRIER TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNUS SHANNON BURKE REIMAGINES HIS WILMETTE HOMETOWN IN HIS LATEST BOOK.

BY GREGG SHAPIRO THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

Wilmette native and New Trier Township High School Class of 1984 alumnus is a busy guy. In addition to writing and producing the Netflix series Outer Banks (a series he co-created), he is also a prolific author with four books to his credit. His fourth and latest, due out this month, is The Brother Years (Pantheon)—set in the North Shore suburb of Seneca (a thinly veiled Wilmette), during the late 1970s. Narrator Willie guides us through his challenging teen years which involved a tough father, a tougher older brother, and all the calamities you can imagine, and then some. There’s even a Chekhovian moment where a gun introduced in the first act definitely goes off later. Burke was kind enough to answer a few questions for The North Shore Weekend in advance of the book’s publication.

I apologize for beginning with such an obvious question, but seeing as how The Brother Years is a novel, I have to ask if you come from a large family or are an only child fictionalizing a large family?

I know some novels are entirely fictional. I tend to write books that feel almost like memoirs. All the family details are totally true.

I grew up in Wilmette. Almost all the stories, that we were working and…

What about the sinking of the boat?

The sinking of the boat is not true. There is a corollary to that. My father bought a Porsche.

Making it a boat (in the novel) was just more picturesque, but it's basically the same idea. Just completely out of the blue, so impractical. When I look back on it, I say, “What was he thinking?”

It just seemed so insane. I did spend a lot of time on the water. Later, we did have a Hobie Cat and I sunk it. I was rescued by the Coast Guard four times, so I have had lots of experience sinking or being rescued from desperate situations.

Where do you stand in terms of the family birth order?

I'm the second child (of four). There are three boys; the last one’s a girl. It's a roman a clef.

My siblings would say there are lots of things in there that are not true. That's true; but emotionally, there’s probably almost nothing in there that doesn't have its corollary in reality is what I would say.

Have any of your family members read The Brother Years?

Oh, yeah, they all read it.

What do they think of it?

It’s complicated. They had different reactions.

There's a lot of specific things where they said, “Well, that wasn't true.”

Or they would just say, “It wasn't really that bad,” or they would laugh about some things.

I would say to them, “I’m a fiction writer and the message from this is true, but it was just more fun to write about it in a more dramatic way. As a writer you just start bending things around to make them fit.

Are they all still talking to you?

Yeah, they're all still talking to me. I've been writing now for 35 years.

There are all kinds of things that they’ve read, and they just go along with it sometimes. This (book) was different because it was about them. They were a little guarded. My younger sister … I was really close to her … but she's

Shannon Burke PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PAOLO BOVILACQUE not in the book that much. She was so much younger. When you're that young you don't make anything happen. You have things happen to you. If you’re not affecting the action, your input ends up getting washed out. When I was writing it, there were lots of things left on the floor. You cut it out because you want to keep the pages turning. There was stuff with her where it seems like she wasn't that important,

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and that actually wasn't true. In reality, my older brother Mike and my younger brother Ian were sort of a team. I touch on this where my dad's frustrated and he's disciplining all of us, but particularly my older brother, and it flowed down through the rest of the kids. Ian teamed up with Mike to get out of his way, and then Erin and I would team up, and that’s not in there; it's not relevant to the story. Instead, I THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

LIFESTYLE & ARTS ended up focusing more on Mike and me. A book takes on a life of its own and you end up telling this story.

Would you consider The Brother Years to be one for Y/A (young adult) readers, and did you have a target audience in mind?

No, not really. Do you think it's a Y/A book?

Only in that the language is clean and there's no sex.

It just might be the way I write. I tend to write pretty cleanly, in general. I don't have any problem with it being marketed that way or with it being a Y/A book. But if you're asking me if I went out of the way to write a Y/A novel, I didn't. My kids, who are 12 and 14, have read it. I want someone of a similar age (as the characters in the book) to be able to read it and to understand it.

The Brother Years is set in the fictional North Shore suburb of Seneca. You grew up in Wilmette, a suburb that has a Seneca Avenue. Is that how you arrived at the name?

One of my friends lived on Seneca when I was growing up. It was a street I spent a lot of time on, so that probably lodged in my brain.

You pick a name and you’re like, “That seems to fit!” All the other things are named, like New Trier and Evanston, and I don't know why I didn’t name Wilmette. Anyone who grew up in that area would know it’s Wilmette. It’s a city that’s next to Evanston that has a lakefront piece of it and a harbor. It's obviously Wilmette.

When you're writing, early on, it makes it easier if you make it fictional to just do what you need to do. You’re not worried about if it’s true or not, you’re just trying to tell a story.

I’m glad you mentioned New Trier, because the high school is its own character in the novel. As an alumnus, how would you rate your own experience at New Trier?

I feel like I captured pretty clearly like how I felt (in the book). I probably wouldn't be a writer if I didn’t go to New Trier. It's a great school. You have great teachers. We were poor and I didn't know that there were other people like us. As in the only kids we knew were kids of rich people. I worked as a janitor with my

father on Wednesday and Sunday nights cleaning an office building in Wilmette. We called it the Baker Building. But other kids weren’t nice to janitors.

Some teenagers have a reputation for not being nice. Hormones and all that.

Yeah. They don't have a lot of experience; they don't understand that people who work as janitors are actually people, too. Not just my dad—I'm working at that job! There’s all that attitude about doing that work. You sort of hide, but you’re also defiant about it. It really informs your character. I'm always going to be on the underdog’s side because of that feeling of going to school but knowing you're sort of half on the other side of this hierarchal dividing line.

High school is cliquey enough and then you add that element to it and it just intensifies it.

That’s another thing I touched on, but it’s almost impossible to understand how big New Trier is. It’s 5,000 kids. It's not really cliquey in the way of a lot of high schools. You don't know half your class. You know how when you’re paired with someone to walk down the aisle for graduation? I was paired with a girl I didn’t know that I'd never seen before. So, it's more like a college where their cliques and popular kids, but it’s sort of muted because it's just so big. I would go to school and do the baseline of what I needed to do, and I was content. I liked being anonymous. I had four really good friends near the middle of my sophomore year.

Those guys were really important for me. I knew who my crew was and we were together and it made school fun. The social part of it was fine. It was a great school. I learned so much there. I learned how to be around the people who are basically going to rule the world.

That’s the way it is. It shouldn't be that way, but that is the way it is.

I recently interviewed filmmaker Kris Rey about her new movie I Used to Go Here, in which a novelist is invited back to her alma mater to do a reading. Have you been invited back to New Trier to do a reading or to speak to students?

I don't think I have. There may have been

some invitation to speak to a class, but it wasn't possible. I live in Tennessee now and it's not convenient for me to get back there. But I would totally do it.

All the English classes I had were good. I had an AP teacher who was great.

You are a co-creator of and writer for the Netflix series Outer Banks. If The Brother Years was made into a Netflix series or movie, who would you like to see playing the main character Willie and his older brother Coyle?

Gosh, I have no idea. Those roles are really young. They always ask me that!

Outer Banks season two was just announced today.

Congratulations.

Thanks. W hile we’ve been on the phone, I’ve gotten like 25 emails. I’m the executive producer and co-creator.

I’ve co-written the first six scripts of the next season. But I’m like the guy who doesn't know anything about film. I'm writing the scripts and I'm doing the story, but when you asked me about younger actors, I don't know any. There are probably a handful of young people who are famous or have broken through in the adult world, like YouTubers or Instagram

people who are sort of famous at that age. When we were casting Outer Banks, there aren't that many famous people who are 16. There’s a limited number. It’s somewhere around the early twenties when people start getting known.

I’ve been asked that question in various forms and I’m terrible at it.

NORTH SHORTS

LIFE ON MARS A SIGN THAT HOPE ON THE HORIZON.

BY MIKE LUBOW ILLUSTRATION BY KIRSTEN ULVE

North Shore morning on Mars Orange dawn. You’re strolling across an empty North Shore beach, far from the shoreline. The sun’s barely up, and so are you. You went there to start a hot day on a cool morning—to avoid people, avoid the mask thing, the social distancing thing, to avoid thinking about COVID-19.

It’s quiet. No wind. No movement. With the lake far behind, you’re in a world of dry stones and sand dunes. You think, this is what it must be like on Mars.

As a kid, you were fascinated by Mars, even THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

wanted to go there. Here and now, this lonesome piece of the North Shore looks like Mars. And you figure, no, you wouldn’t want to go to such a lifeless planet.

Then, a bird flies from a tree on an overhanging bluff. Hey, you know that wingbeat. A neighborhood Robin. You have no idea why this solitary bird decided to fly through the empty sky at that moment. But you’re glad it did. A sign of normal life. Maybe a sign of times to come. The place is still bleak, but a little less so.

This column was adapted by Mike Lubow from his book: Wild Notes: Observations over time about birds and other fleeting things. Available on amazon.com.

SATURDAY AUGUST 22 | SUNDAY AUGUST 23 2020 |

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LIFESTYLE & ARTS

BUILDING HAPPINEST WHEN HER BELOVED PARENTS DIED, STEPHANIE KLEIN WAS LEFT WITH THE TASK OF SORTING THROUGH A LIFETIME OF POSSESSIONS. HER NEW ORGANIZING AND DECLUTTERING BUSINESS HELPS PEOPLE DO THE SAME, GUIDING THEM ON THE ART OF LETTING GO, WITH LOVE.

BY WENDY FRANZEN THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

A warm summer sun is rising over verdant lawns, drying dew drops from blades of grass on its way to a clear blue sky. It is 1984 and school is out. Children do not rise with the ping-ping-glow of a smartphone. It is instead the giddy anticipation of hopping on a bicycle that draws them from bed. Gathering friends along the way while peddling the winding, treelined streets of Lake Forest, bronzed limbed and carefree, is the master plan. Swimsuits are thrown on as base layers, allowance is shoved into pockets for ice cream at Sweets. Who knows what adventures may unfold on this glorious, wide-open day?

Stephanie Klein (née Beck) was born and raised, along with brothers Stewart and Warren, in Lake Forest. Riding her bike from sun-up to sun-down with friends she continues to hold dear is a cherished memory. Playing tennis on the high school team, swimming at Knollwood, and working as a Sunset check-out girl are also fondly remembered.

“Moving back here to raise our family was an easy decision,” she explains. “I wanted them to experience this sense of community and the freedom to roam that is rare in today’s world,” she shares. “But it is bittersweet … I’d give anything for my parents to have seen our boys grow up. They would have been such a huge presence in their lives.”

Jean and Lee Beck, Stephanie’s parents, were deeply committed Lake Foresters. After meeting at Waterloo High School in Iowa and attending separate colleges, they married. Lee then went to medical school on the GI bill and Jean took a job as an operating room nurse. They found their way to Chicago’s North Shore when Lee was sent to Great Lakes Naval Base, and to make ends meet, he moonlighted at Lake Forest Hospital.

“And he stayed! He worked for 30 years at the hospital as an anesthesiologist, spending several as chief of staff,” she explains, smiling at the recollection. “My parents loved living here. My mom was President of the Lake Forest Symphony, and an incredibly passionate fundraiser. And she treasured playing bridge with friends and gardening at our family home.”

Dr. Beck often spent his cherished free time hunting, and along with Jean, founded the Lake Forest chapter of Ducks Unlimited. She also reverentially remembers his passion for golf. “If he wasn’t at the hospital, you would most likely find him on the golf course at Knollwood. He loved to play as a family, too. Most of our family vacations revolved around playing golf. We all grew up playing. That’s where I get my love of the game, from my Dad.” The apple does not fall far from the tree, as the saying goes. Stephanie, while raising Alex (20), Ryan (17), and Tyler (14) with her husband Eric, has spent many hours devoted to community service. From serving on Lake Forest Hospital’s Women’s Health Advisory Council

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Stephanie Klein. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MONICA KASS ROGERS to completing a recent three-year term on the Lake Forest Caucus, giving back is part of who she is. It is the Beck DNA. “All of my jobs have been about service and helping people,” she relates. “It’s what I love to do.”

When Lee and Jean passed away in quick succession and her brothers were too distant to help, Stephanie was saddled with clearing out her parents’ home on the Lake Forest Academy grounds.

“They were of the depression era when you saved everything,” she confides. “Dealing with 40 years of their collective accumulation was emotionally taxing and completely overwhelming.

“This is what led her to create her current, thriving business, Happinest Organizing. She has distinguished herself by focusing on both external and internal clutter, tackling each project with compassion. “From my life experience I know that we all have emotional attachments to things. I have a great deal of empathy for clients dealing with the unenviable task of letting go,” she shares.

Talking with clients and sharing their stories aids in the process of parting with objects.

“Clutter is indecision, and a huge part of my job is helping clients decide what to do.”

The great value-add is that Happinest deals with every object after the decision-making process is complete. Purging, organizing and

| SATURDAY AUGUST 22 | SUNDAY AUGUST 23 2020

putting systems in place are major components of the company, but “I take everything away in the greenest possible way, including recycling and dropping donations at Forest and Found,” she states. “I often tell my clients that they have gotten their use and joy out of the things they’re letting go, and why not put those things out into the universe and let others enjoy them, too?”

Stephanie turned her passion into a business, with the hope of helping others and making a positive impact on their lives. Jean and Lee would no doubt be proud.

For more information on Happinest Organizing, visit happinestorganizing.com.

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S U N D AY B R E A K FA S T

TIBBLES ’N (NEWS) BITS CURIOSITY AND STORYTELLING NOURISH NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT AND HIGHLAND PARK RESIDENT KEVIN TIBBLES wait. Maybe I should call it a soda. I remember looking up at one newspaper page with a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon. I also remember thinking, ‘OK, I want to be journalist.’ In high school I was shy, introverted. I liked to read. When I read The Sinking of the Lusitania, I realized the world is a lot bigger than I’d known. The seeds of my desire to travel and see the world were planted in high school.”

Tibbles earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto and then became a cub reporter for a Toronto TV station. He chased fire engines and ran to editors after filling film canisters.

He also courted the creative graphic artist, MarieAndree “Aimee” Laberge, in charge of designing the on-air, over-the-anchor’sshoulder images. Today Laberge is director of cultural programs at Alliance Francaise de Chicago.

And Tibbles’ wife. They have two children: son Andreas, 30, who works for the Canadian government in Ottawa; and daughter Marguerite, 27, a fish biologist in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“Our children were 9 and 7 when we looked for a house in beautiful Highland Park,” says Tibbles, a hockey buff since birth and a man who, in 2000, knew oodles more about Chicago Blackhawks Keith Magnuson and Stan Mikita than he did about Ravinia Festival and the Highland Park locations of scenes in films directed

by John Hughes.

“We didn’t know anything about Highland Park, didn’t know a soul in Highland Park,” Tibbles says. “My wife and our kids were sitting in

BY BILL MCLEAN ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT

Longtime television newsman and Highland Park resident Kevin Tibbles covered Princess Diana’s funeral in London and marveled at flowers across streets and sidewalks stretching as wide as the Mediterranean. He reported to NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw from a rooftop in Baghdad after a coalition bomb run and watched U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps “King Midas” his way to a Brink’s truck of gold medals in swimming pools.

An awed, wide-eyed Tibbles managed to catch his rapidly descending jaw near the top of his shoes as he stood near Nelson Mandela.

“One year, while I was eating my Thanksgiving dinner at home, I got a phone call,” the 63-yearold Tibbles, in his 25th year as an NBC correspondent, recalls from his summer abode in his native Canada. “I ended up in Pakistan later that day.

“That was kind of fun,” he adds.

Kind of cool, to Tibbles? Tibbles’ opportunity to observe Iraqi parents and their children eating orange-flavored ice cream after hostilities had ceased in the region. It wasn’t a dramatic Peace Finally Reigns scene, but it moved Tibbles. Made him smile.

Made him reflect.

Typical journalists look for the obvious pictures, listen for the loudest noises. Other journalists— the patient ones, the curious ones, the enterprising ones like Tibbles—interview the star ballplayer’s batboy instead of the star ballplayer after the big game or kick off a hurricane piece with footage of a University of Miami Hurricanes pennant floating in the Atlantic Ocean instead of videotape of a splintered beach house.

“I tend to like and appreciate the smaller things I get to see and experience in journalism, as opposed to the grandiose moments,” says Tibbles, who has appeared in segments for NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, Today, and Meet the Press, among other programs. “I’ve always been grateful to be the eyes and ears of others wherever I happen to be. What I’ve learned—what I’ve been privileged to learn in this field—is that no matter where you go, people, essentially, are the same. Parents all over the world want a better future for their children.

And children want to have fun.”

Tibbles knows exactly what ignited his interest in journalism. A visit to the house of a family friend often meant time in the den, where walls were covered with framed front-page clippings of newspapers.

“I’d sit there and stare at them until it was time to go home,” says Tibbles, who worked as a foreign correspondent for the London bureau of NBC News before transferring to Chicago 20 years ago. “I’d have a pop in my hand. Oh,

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Kevin Tibbles

| SATURDAY AUGUST 22 | SUNDAY AUGUST 23 2020

front of Braeside School one day, shortly after our arrival, when the principal came out and asked if we needed any help. She then took our children inside and showed them around. That was such a warm welcome.

I’ve always been grateful to be the eyes and ears of others wherever I happen to be.

“All of our parental apprehensions, at that moment, evaporated.”

Tibbles still loves hockey. Still plays it—“with a bunch of old men,” he says, on Friday nights at Centennial Ice Arena in Highland Park. But not lately. Some formidable and out-of-this-world rookie, COVID-19, hasn’t allowed a goal, or a skater to even hit the ice, since mid-March.

“I am as confused and as scared and as hopeful as anyone else is,” Tibbles says. “This pandemic, it’s certainly a reminder of how vulnerable we are as people, isn’t it? I’ve been doing some research, reading up on the 1918 flu pandemic.”

Of course he has. He’s a professional journalist, to the core, having earned four Emmys, a Peabody Award, a National Headliner Award, an Overseas Press Club Award, and an award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

But reading is just one item in the spacious Journalism cart. There should be plenty of room for storytelling—a staple—in there, and the art and skill of listening should buckle the wheels.

“Listening,” Tibbles says, “is critical. I can’t emphasize that enough. You have to be interested in what someone is saying, even if it’s mundane. You have to be engaged. It’s amazing what you’ll learn, what you’ll pick up, if you just stop talking and start listening.

“The best piece of professional advice I’ve ever received is, ‘It’s not about you; it’s about somebody else or it’s about the story that needs to be told.’

I keep reminding myself of that.”

Tibbles hopes to remain in the TV news game for years. It’s where he belongs. Still. Few in the business present broadcast segments featuring kids as well as he does.

“Witty children thrill me,” says Tibbles, known as “The Potato Man” on Halloween Night because he hands out a spud if any trick-or-treater dares to ding-dong his doorbell for another round of candy. “My shtick, when I’m putting together a report on a topic involving kids, is to be smartalecky while challenging them to respond to a question. I love it when a kid has a comeback that’s three times more smart-alecky than the tone of my question.”

THE NORTH SHORE WEEKEND

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Coldwell Banker Realty | 1420 Waukegan Road | Glenview, Illiniois The property information herein is derived from various sources that may include, but not be limited to, county records and the Multiple Listing Service, and it may include approximations. Although the information is believed to be accurate, it is not warranted and you should not rely upon it without personal verification. Affiliated real estate agents are independent contractor sales associates, not employees. ©2020 Coldwell Banker. All Rights Reserved. Coldwell Banker and the Coldwell Banker logos are trademarks of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC. The Coldwell Banker ® System is comprised of company owned offices which are owned by a subsidiary of Realogy Brokerage Group LLC and franchised offices which are independently owned and operated. The Coldwell Banker System fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.

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