St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church closing brings complex emotions
Rising costs, dwindling attendance prompts decision
By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter
Lower mass attendance and costly upkeep has resulted in the anticipated closure of St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy church
The building, located at 27 Washington Blvd. in Oak Park, is part of a Catholic parish that includes St. Giles, 1045 Columbian Ave., Oak Park. Building closure will occur prior to the end of the parish’s fiscal year on June 30. A final commemorative mass will be hosted in June, according to a press release made available Monday by the parish, though no official closing date has been set.
While located in Oak Park, the parish has a long history as a shared community between Oak Park and Austin.
Rev. Carl Morello, pastor of St. CatherineSt. Lucy and St. Giles, made the announcement after 9 a.m. mass Sunday. He invited the roughly 75 parishioners in attendance at St. Catherine-St. Lucy to speak to each other and him about the announcement.
“I can tell you than in 42 years I’ve been a priest, I never imagined that I would be in a position to tell people that their sacred place
See CHURCH CLOSING on page 4
Oak
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
Oak Park’s village government has taken a position to try and reduce panhandling.
The village has launched a public service announcement campaign discouraging residents from giving money to people asking for it on the street, instead encouraging Oak Parkers to donate to Housing Forward using QR code posters around the community and directing people they encounter to the resources of fered by that organization or other local service providers.
The posters carry the slogan, “Give Real Change, Not Spare Change,” as the
Catherine - St. Lucy Church
Serving seniors since 1925!
With Cantata’s continuum of care, you can live your best life today, tomorrow and into the future. You can count on our century of expertise dedicated to your lifestyle and healthcare needs.
Call today to schedule a tour our 10-acre campus! (708) 387-1030
Introduction to Centering Prayer Workshop
Sat urdayMorning
Sat urdayMorning , March 29
Saturday Morning, March 29 • 8:30am-12:00pm St. Edmund Murphy Hall • 188 S. Oak Park Ave.
Introduction to
8:30am - 12:00pm
8:30am St Edmund 188 S Oak
Contemplative prayer allows the hunger and thirst for God to well up.
St Edmund M urphy Hall
188 S Oak Park Avenue
Sat urdayMorning , March 29
8:30am - 12:00pm
Deepen your relationship with God. Centering Prayer is a silent method of consenting to God’s presence and healing action within us. Learn the basics of a centuries-old method of silent prayer by sitting with God while opening your mind and heart to wordless communion.
St Edmund M urphy Hall
188 S Oak Park Avenue
Contemplative prayer and thirst for
Contemplative prayer allows the hunger and thirst for God to well up.
Register at 8:15. No charge. Donations welcome. Register by sending an email to rbrtgorman@protonmail.com Walk-ins welcome.
Contemplative prayer allows the hunger and thirst for God to well up.
You are encouraged to attend four follow-up sessions on Wednesday evenings in April from 7:00 to 8:30 pm on Zoom.
Deepen your relationship with God consenting to God’s presence and basics of a centuries-old method of opening your mind and heart to wordless
Deepen your relationship with God Centering Prayer is a silent method consenting to God’s presence and healing action within us. Learn the basics of a centuries-old method of silent prayer by sitting with God while opening your mind and heart to wordless communion.
Deepen your relationship with God Centering Prayer is a silent method of consenting to God’s presence and healing action within us. Learn the basics of a centuries-old method of silent prayer by sitting with God while opening your mind and heart to wordless communion.
Bob and Kathleen Gorman of Oak Park are commissioned presenters of the Centering Prayer method and facilitate silent retreats for Contemplative Outreach.
Sponsored by Spirit and Light: A Catholic Collaborative for Living Faith
Register at 8:15. No charge. Donations email to rbrtgorman@protonmail.com
Register at 8:15. No charge. Donations welcome. Register by sending an email to rbrtgorman@protonmail.com Walk-ins welcome.
Register at 8:15. No charge. Donations welcome. Register by sending an email to rbrtgorman@protonmail.com Walk-ins welcome.
You are encouraged to attend four evenings in April from 7:00 to 8:30
You are encouraged to attend four follow-up sessions on Wednesday evenings in April from 7:00 to 8:30 pm on Zoom.
You are encouraged to attend four follow-up sessions on Wednesday evenings in April from 7:00 to 8:30 pm on Zoom.
Bob and Kathleen Gorman of Oak Centering Prayer method and facilitate
Bob and Kathleen Gorman of Oak Park are commissioned presenters of the Centering Prayer method and facilitate silent retreats for Contemplative Outreach.
Spirit and Light: A Catholic
Bob and Kathleen Gorman of Oak Park are commissioned presenters of the facilitate silent retreats for Contemplative Outreach.
Spirit and Light: A Catholic Collaborative for Living Fatih
Hot-button topics include restorative justice, detracking, spending
By GREGG VOSS Contributing Reporter
Joshua Gertz and Nathan Mellman worked quickly at Tuesday’s Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 school board candidate forum to establish their joint threepoint campaign platform and to distinguish themselves from the four other candidates.
“We want all of our children to be safe,” said Gertz, an employee benefits attorney and married father of three, in his opening statement. “We’d like to make sure all students are academically challenged. We’d like to safeguard taxpayer dollars.”
Mellman, a judge and for mer defense attorney and prosecutor, echoed those sentiments in his opener.
“Our kids deserve a school system that works for everyone,” he said. “Together, we can create schools that are safe, strong and supportive for every child and every family.”
The forum at the Oak Park Public Library was hosted by Growing Community Media, publisher of Wednesday Journal, and was
moderated by Dan Haley, a Journal staff member
In addition to Gertz and Mellman, forum participants included board incumbents Frederick Arkin and Audrey Williams-Lee, and newcomers Kathleen Odell and write-in candidate David Schaafsma.
Gertz and Mellman wasted no time establishing their platform in the forum’s first discussion topic, the district’s restorative justice model that has been emphasized in recent years, and discipline.
Arkin, who works in the insurance field, noted that the district is currently in a two-year behavior education plan, installing restorative practices, and that the result has been a decrease in disciplinary incidents, from about 700 to about 500. Out-of-school suspensions have decreased by 56 percent.
dents, like fights or attacks on teachers and staff, more punitive measures are appropriate.
“The role of a public school is to educate every student,” Odell said. “The move toward restorative practices is very important in terms of the school doing everything it can to keep students in school.”
The discussion evolved into the question of do students feel safe?
Gertz said he didn’t think so, but Odell and Williams-Lee countered that.
“Both my sons went to the high school,” Williams-Lee said. “I don’t buy that we have a school that’s unsafe. While restorative practices can definitely reduce the need for punitive actions, that doesn’t mean we eliminate them.”
Another key question is the matter of race
WEDNESD AY
rk and River Forest e Director Max Reinsdorf Stac y Coleman
Digital Media Coordinator Brooke Duncan endan He ernan
ewpoints Editor Ken Trainor ditor Lacey Sikora
ntributing Editor Donna Greene
Bleso , Jack Crowe, Grady, Kwame Salter, Stanger
Shrubtown Cartoonist Marc Stopeck
Design/Production Manager Andrew Mead
Editorial Design Manager Javier Govea Kelvey, Vanessa Garza tising Associate Ben Stumpe
Senior Media Strategist Lourdes Nicholls
elopment Manager Mary Ellen Nelligan
Circulation Manager Jill Wagner
Special Projects Manager Susan Walker Robert K. Downs
Senior Advisor Dan Haley
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Chair Eric Weinheimer | Treasurer Nile Wendor f Deb Abrahamson, Steve Edwards, Judy Gre n, Horacio Mendez, Charles Meyerson Darnell Shields, Audra Wilson
Mellman questioned those numbers. In the 2022-23 school year, he said, there were about 84 incidents of threat or actual violence.
“Last year, it was less, about 41,” he went on. “Through Jan. 13, they’ve hit that number – 41 incidents of threat or serious violence. Looking at doubling that this year.”
Restorative justice for lower-level incidents works, he added, but with more serious inci-
“As a mom of Black boys, I will tell you they get treated differently,” said Williams-Lee who works in human resources. “Sometimes kids can only be kids when they are white kids. That’s just a reality of where we are.”
Another hot-button issue was the fairness of the freshman detracking program, an all-
TODD BANNOR
OPRF District 200 Board of Education candidates (from le ) Frederick D. Arkin, Joshua Gertz, Nathan R. Mellman, Kathleen Odell, David Schaafsma and Audrey Williams-Lee with moderator Dan Haley at the D200 candidate forum on Feb. 25.
CHURCH CLOSING
June 30 target date
from page 1
was being closed,” he said Monday morning. “I had to pray about it. I had to struggle with it emotionally.
“I’ve come to appreciate the community, who they are, the cultural gifts they bring, some of the things they taught me, so there is a sense of connectedness.”
The press release noted that St. Catherine-St. Lucy Catholic School will remain open, while the nonprofit SisterHouse, which offers a temporary home to women seeking recovery from substance abuse, will remain in the church’s for mer convent building. The Neighborhood Bridge and the Faith and Fellowship Ministry will continue to operate out of the repurposed rectory. Housing Forward will have a presence there.
Morello said the church building will become relegated by the Archdiocese of Chicago, meaning it will no longer be considered for sacred use or space. The archdiocese can elect to rent the building or sell it to an organization that has use for it. But until it gets relegated, it will stand vacant.
“The church was not targeted for closur e,” the Archdiocese of Chicago said in a statement. “At the request of St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy and St. Giles parish, the archdiocese assisted with a multi-site review in early 2024 to assess its buildings and finances. Following a townhall in October 2024, the parish determined that maintaining St. Catherine of Siena-St. Lucy Church was not sustainable due to finances and significant maintenance costs.”
Morello said ongoing maintenance and repair costs, including things such as tuck pointing, can cost more than a million dollars, which says nothing of the monthly costs to operate the church, such as electricity, heat, cleaning and air conditioning, which can cost as much as $20,000 per month.
“Ultimately, it’s the community that made the decision,” he said.
St. Catherine-St. Lucy parishioners have multiple options for Sunday mass and other ministries. St. Giles will remain open, and so will Ascension Catholic Church, 808 S. East Ave., and St. Edmund, 188 S. Oak Park Ave.
Valerie Jennings, a 40-year parishioner of St. Catherine-St Lucy, said keeping the church open was not sustainable.
“I’m going to be that direct and to the point,” she said. “We had low church attendance. We are good stewards of the treasures we’ve been entrusted by God, but it’s not enough to provide additional educational and spiritual opportunities for parishioners.
“It’s not easy, but it made sense.”
Other long-time parishioners contacted by Wednesday Jour nal expressed a range of emotions.
Pat Nelson, with her family a member of the parish for 58 years, said she “cannot judge whether the decision to close is right or wrong., but I do believe it is inevitable.” She referred to the work of parish members who presented a financial overview at a town hall last October and said she felt “the writing was on the wall toward closure.”
Bill Cragg and his family joined the parish in 1972. He noted the parish had two eras. The first began in the early 1930s when the church was built and it was packed with big Irish families and had a school “busting at the seams.” The second
St. Catherine - St. Lucy Church
A legacy of servanthood
According to the b ook The Archdiocese of Chica go : A Journey of Fait h , St. Catherine of Siena church was founded in 1889 and merged in 1974 with St. Lu cy, located in Austin. T he St. Catherine’s building was designed by Joseph W. McCa rt hy and completed in 1931. It was built in a Tudor Gothic style
T hough the church has had a long history of s piritual servanthood, the evolution to ultimate closure li ke ly be g an in the late 1980s, when the Rev. Edward Braxton, now a retired bishop, arrive d as p astor. At the time, Braxton and the now-deceased Sr. Te resita We ind had a brewing disag reement about her role in the parish.
“She would offer homilies and reflections durin g mass, and of course, women aren’t supposed to be doing that,” Valerie Jennings said. “Only an ordained
era, he said, came in the 1960s and 1970s when Austin rapidly resegregated from white to Black and “the parish became a DEI leader before there was DEI. Everyone was welcome at St. Catherine’s.”
He offered his take on the emotions around the closing. “Speaking for myself and maybe for other parishioners, the announcement that the church will be silent on Sundays brings on a deep sense of melancholy and so many memories of baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings and funerals. … All those people, all of those years – just the best, just the very best. With faith, hope and charity we will carry on.”
Tom N elson, husband of Pat N elson, of fered a c ontrary view.
“I do not believe the decision to close SCSL Church is the
priest and d eacons are allowe d to give homilies. Th at was the downturn of St. Catherine-St. Lu cy. People we re upset and they left.
Jennings said that wh i le the church was decidedly “more lenient in some areas.” Braxton was focused on creating alignment with the Catholic church as a whole. We ind left the church in 1991, but her influence is still there for Jenning s.
“She encouraged me,” she said. “I was wo rk ing in a co rp orate environment and she was p ushing me toward church and be a lay person with a family. I did a lot on a volunteer basi s. ”
We ind died on April 28, 2024 at the age of 81. After leaving St. Catherine-St. Lu cy C hurch, We ind went on to lead her order inter nationally.
right decision. This church is a place to begin wonderful things. If a house pipe is broken, you fix it, you don’t sell the house,” he wrote in an email to Wednesday Journal. “I believe my American Black friends are fed up with band-aids. Cut and run is not the answer. Th incubator ideas of Big Shoulders and Bridge cannot do it alone. We all need to stop whining and get going. No more 3-hour committee meetings. Just set goals and do it,” Nelson wrote
With Ash Wednesday this week, marking the beginning of Lent, Morello said the closure does provide a unique opportunity for all Catholics in Oak Park.
“We look at these challenges in faith,” he said. “We carry these crosses, [and] gain some new life from this.
“This is an important thing for me as a priest.”
Dan Haley contributed reporting to this story.
— Gregg Voss
Fenwick settles lawsuit alleging sex abuse cover-up
Suit alleged Fenwick leaders covered up multiple allegations of sexual abuse by a teacher in the 1990s
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
A lawsuit filed by a for mer Fenwick School student alleging that school leader had covered up and enabled sexual a teacher in the mid-1990s was settled out-of court last fall.
The suit, filed in 2022, alleged that for mer Fenwick Principal James Quaid had refused to act on allegations of sexual abuse made by several girls against social studies teacher Matthew Dineen during that era, allowing the abuse to continue for months. Allegedly, school leaders did not report any of the allegations to law enforcement or to the girls’ parents and did not add a record of the allegations to Dineen’s personnel file, according to a report by the Chicago Sun-Times published last weekend
The suit, which named Quaid and Fenwick as defendants, settled out-of-court on Nov. 6, 2024, according to Cook County court records.
“Defendant fell miserably short of its obligations because Matthew Dineen routinely spent inappropriate amounts of time with and sexually abused and sexually assaulted JANE DOE outside of class, and routinely sexually spent inappropriate amounts of time with and abused and sexually assaulted JANE DOE 2 and JANE DOE 3 during the school day and in the school building,” the plaintiff said in a section of the complaint published by the Sun-Times.
The suit also alle ged that Dineen had groomed the girls, blackmailed girls into eng aging in sexual relationships with him and been allowed to spend time with the girls in inappropriate settings, according to the newspaper.
The suit also alleged that Quaid had intimidated a girl out of making an allegation against Dineen, reportedly telling her “I am going to ask you a question, and if the answer is ‘Yes’ you will be kicked out of school. Are you having an affair with Mr. Dineen?” according to the Sun-Times
Quaid denied the allegation in a deposition, according to the paper.
Quaid presently serves as superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Joliet.
Dineen would go on to work as a teacher and coach at Gardiner Area High School in Maine, where in 2010 he was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of unlawful sexual touching in a case involving a 16-year-old student. He was sentenced to 120 days in prison, according to the Portland Press Herald
The girls Dineen allegedly abused were among the first classes of female students to attend Fenwick, which had been an all-boys school until the early 1990s.
Fenwick teachers have been accused of sexual misconduct on several other occasions dating back decades, with allegations implicating both ordained and lay faculty members.
The Dominican Friars of the Central Province, which runs Fenwick, did not list for mer Fenwick Latin teacher John Gambro on its first published list of clergy who’d been credibly accused of sexual assault in 2022. But the order reversed course years later, admitting that it had become aware of his 1978 sexual assault of a boy at Fenwick in 2002, according to the Sun-Times Gambro was never laicized and died in 2021.
In 2019, several men spoke with Wednesday Journal about sexual abuse they’d experienced or heard of from Rev. William P. Farrell, a longtime teacher, counselor and spiritual advisor at Fenwick who died in 1989.
In 2022, Fenwick let go of longtime basket-
GOOGLE MAPS/SCREENSHOT
D200 FORUM
from page 3
honors curriculum also known as Honors for All, according to Odell, in the subjects of science, English and history. Odell said 88 percent of students entering ninth grade are in Honors for All.
“I think the Honors for All approach has been an important and great transition for our school,” she said.
Haley asked for a show of hands about whether the district should continue the program for multiple additional years.
The yeas were Arkin, Odell, Schaafsma and Williams-Lee. The nays were Gertz and Mellman.
“What we should be doing is identifying students that are just at or below grade level in core subject matters coming into ninth grade,” Gertz said. “What Nate and I are proposing is intensive summer school programs, to bring up to level and give them the best footing to succeed in high school.”
Williams-Lee said that while ninth graders who are not on track to graduate is low for its district peer group, OPRF graduates 90 percent of students.
OPRF District
Inclusion, the inclusion of more students, giving them more opportunities within this honors curriculum is better for all students
“If you go back to tracking, it’s a step back.”
Odell, who has a senior and freshman at OPRF, is a professor of economics at Dominican University and has served two years on the district’s community finance committee. Thus, fiscal responsibility is important to her.
committee, Odell said there is an emphasis on evidence-based funding.
“How much do you need to be spending in certain categories in order to be considered adequate by the state?” she said, adding that OPRF stands at 140 percent in adequacy, in the exact middle of its peer districts
“The highest level of spending is on people – teachers,” she said.
ge 6
oach and history teacher John Quinn ooming and sexual public, with the ts months-long investigalear and unequivoainst students ournal column pubthe allegations owe wrote that priest named Robert Francis the cousin of his father, had sexually abused his older brother. e is not mentioned entral Province’s list of ccused of sexual abuse, ts “Sexual Misconduct Review Board did not consider themselves to have a sufficient basis for making a reliable recommendation about allegations against” William Farrell. Fenwick, Quaid, lawyers for the woman who brought the case, The Diocese of Joliet and The Diocese of Chicago all re por tedly declined requests from the Sun-Times for comment.
TODD BANNOR
Oak Park native Morrissey wraps up sportswriting career
Fenwick alum has been repor ter and columnist for 43 years
By MELVIN Contributing
For many years, Oak rissey has been a leading sports fans, first as a bune, then as a columnist for the Sun-Times
Now his 43-year sports coming to a close: Morrissey announced on X (formerly Twitter) that he has buyout offer from the Sun- column is scheduled for March 20.
Morrissey told the We the ongoing challenges the try is facing played a role in his decision.
“I’ve been in the business and I’d been planning on walking a year or two,” Morrissey said. “This just speeded up the process, and I’m okay with that. I’ve been able to do a lot of cool stuf f in this job, and I hope somebody else gets the same opportunities I did.”
Sportswriter Rick Morrissey in 2012.
column, “In The Wake of the News.”
Morrissey, a 1978 graduate of Fenwick High School, said that his older brother, who wrote for the school newspaper, The Wick, was the one who influenced him to embark on a journalism career.
“There was a Journalism 101 book lying around our house that I assumed was his,” he said. “I looked at it in sixth or seventh grade and thought the idea of writing for a living was pretty cool. I ended up being the sports editor for The Wick my senior year.
“A few teachers at Ascension grade school had encouraged me to write, and that made me feel good as a kid,” he added. “Also, I was ter rible at math!”
Upon graduating from Northwestern University in 1982, Morrissey started his career with Star Publications (now the Daily Southtown). Next came stops at the Fort Wayne (IN) Journal-Gazette, the Charlotte (NC) Observer, and the Rocky Mountain News of Denver. In 1997, Morrissey returned to the Chicago area, joining the Tribune as a beat re porter for the Chicago Bears. Three years later, he became the lead writer for the Tribune’s daily sports
In 2009, Morrissey left the Tribune to become a sports columnist for the Sun-Times. Moreover, in 2012, he wrote a book about for mer White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, named “Ozzie’s School of Management.”
Morrissey, now residing in Riverside, said he will miss the people he met and worked with over the years as well as the press-box camaraderie. He said his favorite highlight is covering the 2016 Cubs’ World Series championship “because no Chicago journalists in the previous 108 years had been able to say they did it.”
The fact that he wrote for both of his hometown newspapers is something that he is grateful for.
“If you had told me when I was 21 that I would have this career, I would have never believed it,” Morrissey said.
As for his future, Morrissey said he’s not sure what comes next.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said. “I do love to write, so hopefully I’ll find an outlet. I just do n’t know what that is yet.”
FRANK PINC/FILE
CONRAD ROOFING CO.
Oak Park names Marckess as new nance director
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
Oak Park has found its next financia leader
llage Manager Kevin son named Carrie Marckess as Oak finance director in a press release Thursd morning. Marckess begins in the Monday, March 3, according to the release “We undertook an extensi fill this important vacancy organization and Carrie really stood out during the process,” Jackson municipal gover nment experience and strong commitment to fiscal stewardshi and responsibility will be in our Oak Park community. I am elated to welcome her to our team and I am confident that with her leadership and expertise, the finance department will continue to uphold the highest standards of financial management, financial transparency and accountability as we remain committed to sustainable growth.”
As finance director, Marckess will be responsible for managing the village’s finances, including financial planning and analysis, budgeting, accounting, record keeping and re porting, decision support and analysis and assessment and management of financial risks and emerging trends, according to the release.
“I am honored to be joining the village of Oak Park as the new finance director,” said Marckess. “The opportunity to contribute to such a vibrant and diverse community brings me so much joy. I am eager to begin collaborating with the dedicated team serving the village, ensuring financial stability and transparency while also fostering growth and innovation. I look forward to building strong relationships with the community as we work together to achieve our shared goals for the village’s future.”
Donna Gayden is remaining as interim chief financial officer during the transition, village of ficials said.
Marckess arrives in Oak Park after serving as assistant finance director for the Village of Bloomingdale. In that role, she assisted in planning, administering and directing day-to-day operations of the village’s finance department. She oversaw preparation of the annual budget and capi-
“The opportunity to contribute to such a vibrant and diverse community brings me so much joy.”
C ARRIE MARCKESS Village nance director
tal improvement plan and assisted with the treasury and cash management function of the village’s investment portfolio.
For the past year, Marckess has also served on the Board of Trustees and as Secretary for the Illinois Metropolitan Investment Fund (IMET).
Prior to working in Bloomingdale, Marckess was an accountant with the city of Rolling Meadows.
Marckess, a native of west suburban Addison, is a Certified Public Finance Officer and obtained a Bachelor of Science in accounting from the University of Minnesota in 2022. Prior to that, she also earned an associate in arts with honors from the Colle ge of DuPage, according to the release.
PANHANDLING
New village initiatives from page 1
village look to discourage panhandling in Oak Park and raise money for its partner in providing housing to people in need.
The village hosted an information session for local business owners at Village Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 26 about the new campaign.
“Panhandling” is the practice in which people ask strangers for money in public Vanessa Mahaney, Oak Park’s community services manager, said that the vast majority of panhandlers in Oak Park are not unhoused people, and do not live in Oak Park.
“We do know that the individuals panhandling primarily in Downtown Oak Park or in the Arts District, they are not unhoused,” she said. “They come here, they stay for the day and then they get in their cars and leave and go somewhere else. We think it’s important that we share that feedback with our community members.
“They come because Oak Park residents give, and we’re trying to redirect that conversation.”
Mahaney said the pr from village leader community and from the on the Oak Park Homelessness Coalition.
“This is something launched through the we decided that it may be something that’ better received as a Vi tiative,” she said. “It’s tion to get to this point of everyone, but also how do handling and soliciting in our community
Oak Park has no po dling, as the practice is protected law. Oak Park does ha which is when people look to earn money on the street by selling goods li bottled water without a permit.
Mahaney also hopes to raise awareness of the village’s new ECHO pr alternative police response designed to be a resource for non-emergency calls service, namely people in mental health crisis. The program’s two full-time staffers are both clinically trained social Mahaney said.
“We have ECHO here that can suppo them,” she said. “So I think that people should feel more comfor nicating with us so that help the community as a whole.”
ART BEAT
OPRF brings a magical and modern twist to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘Cinderella’
With a 90-member cast, live orchestra and student-led design, the production is ambitious
By DALAL ORFALI Contributing Reporter
It’s Cinderella perhaps like you’ve never seen it: The glorious Rodgers & Hammerstein songs will be there, but Oak Park and River Forest High School’s student production that opened March 1 has a modern twist featuring empowered characters and a touch of comedy.
This is in addition to a cast of 90, an orchestra of 38 and a stage crew of 50. The production runs through March 8.
Michelle Bayer, chair of the Performing Arts Department and the director of the show, said she was drawn to the 2013 Broadway adaptation for its great music.
Audience can expect to hear classic songs like “Impossible” and “In My Own Little Corner,” but she added: “The production has got a newer, more modern flair for it with some feminist views … There is a lot of comedy, and we want the audience to enjoy it. We also are stressing that a woman gets to choose what she does.”
For example, she said, Cinderella doesn’t drop the shoe – but carefully places it on the stairs. The prince doesn’t grab her for a kiss; it’s more of the choice of two adults. In a ddition, the show features a large orchestra.
“Our current orchestra teacher, Patrick Pearson, had said: ‘I’d really like to feature our large robust string progr am in the musical this year,’” she said.
Baye r said that OPRFHS is one of the rare schools that produces a show of a big scale, but that this c omes will challenges Her vision c omes from her recollections of her high school days being involved as a freshman in her first musical, at a time where chances for k ids to pa rt icipate we re smaller
“I always felt like we would try to include as many kids as we possibly could in our big winter musical,” she said. “So, while there’s challenges on putting 90 children on stage and fitting 38 instruments in the pit and finding places for all
For Cinderella and the pr ince, it’s love at rst dance.
the crew kids, we just feel very strongly about trying to keep our progr am as inclusive as possible and giving kids as many oppor tunities as possible.”
Careful coordination ensures a smooth production, with daily rehearsals and production meetings keeping the team aligned. Student involvement extends beyond acting; tech team members contribute lighting, scenic and costume designs.
“One student in our costume design program is creating transformation dresses and period costumes, which is a huge challenge,” Bayer said.
Opening night on March 1 featured “Invitation to the Ball,” where attendees enjoyed a red carpet, photo booths and flower bouquets for sale, with the cast dressed in elegant ball attire. On March 2, senior citizens were treated to a special rece ption and complimentary tickets, followed by a coffee chat with the director
As the show continues its run, audiences can still catch upcoming performances, including the Theatre Alumni Welcome Event on March 7 and the Senior Student Celebration on closing night, March 8.
The production, which runs two and
a half hours, promises “fun, live music, comedy, and even some audience participation,” Bayer said.
Beyond the spectacle, Bayer hopes the production fosters collaboration and selfexpression. whether it’s through music performance or technical prowess. “We want every kid to find a moment to shine in that collaborative process.” She said.
“The best way to support OPRFHS theater is to come and see our shows because all the ticket sales go right back to the theater program,” she said.”
Get tickets at https://qrco.de/bfn0no.
MEREDITH MCGUIRE
Oak Park group’s Kenya project faces USAID fund-freeze chaos
WGEP had been using a federal grant to help children in rural Kenya, until the money disappeared overnight
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
What began for the Oak Park-based Women’s Global Education Project as a transformational opportunity to follow through on its mission, has turned into a staggering financial and logistical challenge after a White House pen stroke.
A blanket free ze to U.S. Agency for International Development grant spending has put humanitarian effor ts around the world in limbo, according to Amy Maglio, WGEP founder and executive director.
“The consequences of this are just devastating,” Maglio said. “It’s not good for the world to lose its leader in the humanitarian space.”
WGEP, founded 21 years ago in Maglio’s Oak Park home and now r unning from a Marion Street office, works with grassroots organizations in rural parts of Kenya and Sene g al to administer progr ams that help children lear n to read, girls stay in school and communities develop resources to oppose g ender-based violence. T he group has helped more than 50,000 children attend school across the two countries over the years.
The group earned a $2 million USAID grant to support one of its most ambitious projects to date: the construction of a modern library in Tharaka-Nithi County, Kenya. The library was designed to support adult and child literacy initiatives across the re gion, provide materials to over 60 rural schools and serve as the permanent base of operations for Tharaka Women’s Welfare Programme, an anti-female genital mutilation organization that WGEP has
spent more than a decade helping grow
“The idea was to bring in this library to be the focal point for education and literacy in this community,” Maglio said.
The USAID grant of fered WGEP $400,000 in federal reimbursements a year from 2023 to 2027, which they used to construct the “Our Sisters Read” library, which opened in October 2024. The library, complete with a full computer center, is the only one of its kind in all of Kenya.
The remaining years of USAID funding were meant to help the library support its ambitious programs, and pay for Wi-Fi, computer program licenses, solar power and salaries for WGEP’s local staf f.
On Monday, Jan. 26, WGEP rece ived a stop work order from USAID, as U.S. President Donald Trump ’s administratio n initiated a blanket free ze on USAID grant spending.
Amy Maglio said the letter came as a total shock. She said she couldn’t have imagined such an abrupt and wide-reaching federal decision, until she had to live with its consequences.
WGEP has been left with unreimbursed expenses dating back to December 2024, including final payments to contractors who helped build the library and staf f salaries. Since receiving the letter, WGEP has received no guidance on when they will be reimbursed for expenses incurred before the stop work order, or if they’ll be reimbursed at all.
USAID’s Kenya Mission Director David Gosney was on-hand for the grand opening of the ”Our Sisters Read” library, as the event made national news in the country.
“This library opens doors for children and young people to dive into digital technolo gy and ICT, helping them build necessary skills to explore well-paid, future careers,” Gosney told the Nairobi newspaper The Star at the event. “The United States values its partnership with the Kenyan government and people.”
In the weeks following the stop-workorder, WGEP hasn’t heard from USAID’s Kenya of fice at all, receiving no answers to
Children in araka-Nithi County, Kenya practice reading exercises at one of the rural schools suppor ted by Oak Park literacy organization Women’s Global Education Project. e group has been challenged by a USAID funding cut a ecting its work in the region
its many questions, Maglio said.
As a result of the rescinded grant, WGEP was forced to lay of f nearly it’s entire staf f in Kenya, and hopes that the library will be able to support all of its planned programs are currently dim. The goal now is fighting to keep the campus up and running.
“Women’s Global does not want to have to close the doors of our newly built and equipped library and computer center -- it provides access to books and technology to over 10,000 community members and is the only one of its kind in the whole county,” Magilo said. “Without WGEP’s USAID funded program a generation of students will be illiterate, are likely to drop out of school, girls will undergo FGM, become mothers in their early teens and the cycle of poverty continues.”
The details of the USAID funding cut have been tied up in Federal court, as U.S. Judge Amir Ali ordered the Trump administration to lift the free ze on Feb. 13, and pay the roughly $2 billion in outstanding reimbursements for grant spending that had happened to that point. Trump administration officials in a Monday court filing said the free ze was over and that it had reopened $50 billion in grant money to around 500 organizations after an “individualized review” of every USAID award.
International development insider news outlet Devex, cast doubt on those figures in a re port on Monday, re porting that in total, USAID had funded 11,000 programs with $63 billion in 2023.
T he only federal communication WGEP has rece ived since the stop work order was the result of its individualized review, which told the organization its funding would not be reinstated as its mission no longer aligned with administratio n priorities.
“We thought maybe there was a possibility since this is literacy and it’s not that politically charged, maybe we would be one that could keep going, but no,” Maglio said. “There was no real review.
WGEP hopes to close some of the gap created by the lost grant with philanthropic gifts, and will be holding a fundraising event at the Dalcy event center in, Chicago May 19. Maglio hopes that Oak Parkers can see that life changing international development work is being done in their own community, and can find the inspiration to support it.
“T hey should know that there’s an org anization right here in Oak Park that is helping women and girls around the world with gender equality and education,” she said.
PROVIDED BY WGEP
SCAN HERE TO APPLY
PAID INTERNSHIPS FOR OAK PARK STUDENTS
WAGE REIMBURSEMENT FOR OAK PARK BUSINESSES DEADLINE FOR SUMMER COHORT MARCH 14 Program Contributors
Black Fodder perks up River Forest
A new co ee shop in River Forest
By RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR Contributing Reporter
What do the 1693 Sie ge of Vienna and River Forest have in common? You’ll find out at Black Fodder Coffee. The cafe opened its doors in February at 349 Ashland Ave.
When the owners, Forest Parkers Maciej and Monika Wolfart, started their mobile coffee catering business more than seven years ago, they were looking for a name that combined a desire to share their love of coffee and their Polish identity.
Black fodder is how coffee arrived in Europe, so the story goes. Polish nobleman, diplomat and spy Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki help end the Sie ge of Vienna. He took payment in the form of what was thought to be camel food, sacks of black beans left behind by the retreating Ottoman Turk ar my. Kulczycki promptly opened a cafe and became not only a hero, but a beloved figure in Vienna.
On the other hand, the Wolfarts got their start with a request to serve coffee at a wedding.
“We established ourselves in that little niche,” Maciej Wolfart said. “We found the need for quality beverages and also a good selection. Normally companies only serve espresso. Our mobile cart is like a mini cafe. People ke pt saying, where can I get more? They liked the coffee, so they want to come to our cafe. And we were like, maybe it’s time to do that.”
In fact, their first catering customers, Matthew and Iliana Gearhart, were at the opening, excited to see the owners, who have become friends, take this next ste p.
“Maciej has introduced us to what good coffee tastes like,” Matthew Gearhart said.
“Their eye for detail is amazing,” said Iliana Gearhart.
The café building, which was for merly River Forest Kitchen, has been transfor med into an inviting, open, light-filled space with warm wood touches and a color palette reminiscent of coffee and cream. Making the choice of which coffee beans to brew was an impor tant one.
“Right now we have four different roasters. Some of them are local. Magnifico is Chicago-based, really amazing. And then
a lot of tasting, a lot of drinking espresso, just to make sure that we really have the quality.”
But it’s more than good coffee that Black Fodder is offering.
The muffins, truffles and cakes in the bakery case are all gluten-free and sugarfree. That feat is accomplished by Monika Wolfart in the on-site kitchen. The two have been following a keto diet for years.
“The philosophy behind it was that we don’t want to serve our customers, our guests, anything that we, personally, wouldn’t eat or drink,” said Monika Wolfart as translated from Polish by her
husband. “We are excited to show these foods are actually delicious.”
Low carb waffles, lunch items and keto bread will join the menu soon.
The location, nestled in residential River Forest, has generated plenty of interest from neighbors.
“To have a coffee shop in this community is going to be great!” River Forest Trustee
Erika Bachner said. “And the hours, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. will help build community.”
Claudia Moreno, another neighbor, said, “I’m so thrilled they are open. I say Chef ’s Kiss to the gluten-free and sugar-free pastries. This is going to be a hotspot, especially the patio out front in the summer.”
That’s the goal.
“The food is important. The coffee is important, but ultimately, we want to create community,” Maciej Wolfart said. “It’s not just a coffee shop where you can get a caffeine fix, but where you truly feel welcome. We want this place to be a place that you want to come to again and again.”
e humble bar and counter stool has emerged as a design powerhouse in 2025. As kitchen islands become gathering hubs, stools shine as essential stylish seating. Envision sleek metal frames, leather button-tu ed backs, or plush velvet seats adding luxury, or natural wood nishes bringing warmth. With curved silhouettes, intricate woven details, and mixed-material designs, these stools are more than furniture - they express your style. Functionality is key, too. Selecting the right stool depends on your countertop height. If your countertop matches the height of your kitchen base cabinets, choose a counter stool. If your countertops are bar height (42” high), opt for a bar stool to ensure comfort and proper ergonomics. Ready to transform your home? Discover Divine Consign’s stunning collection of bar and counter stools.
Visit our 20,000+ SF showroom at 1800 S. Harlem Ave. in North Riverside, IL, or shop online now. Hurry, with limited stock, they sell fast!
Kellie Scott, Owner Divine Consign
Get in the Know
RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR Monika Wolfart.
RISÉ SANDERS-WEIR
Black Fodder Co ee cappucc ino
Adduci says River Forest is in good shape
Village president delivers her annual state of the village address
By ROBERT J. LIFKA Contributing Reporter
The state of River Forest is “very strong,” Village President Cathy Adduci said in her annual State of the Village address delivered Feb. 24, adding that she is “excited our future and the many initiatives
we are about to embark on.”
Echoing comments made in last year’s address, she said her emphasis will continue to center around safety and security, quality-oflife improvements to strengthen the village’s property values and “taking all steps possible” to stabilize property taxes.
A short-handed village board was pres-
ent to hear Adduci’s address. Trustees Katie Brennan and Bob O’Connell were out of town and Trustee Erika Bachner wasn’t able to attend.
Trustees Lisa Gillis and Respicio Vazquez, who were in attendance, were generally supportive of Adduci’s assessment. Overall, Vazquez said he “wholeheartedly concurred” with Adduci’s view, and Gillis said, “We’re in really good shape,” adding that things we’ll have to address” include economic development and traffic safety
However, Gillis also acknowledged the presence of divisiveness in the village but credited Adduci for “trying to bring people together.”
Referring to her “great team,” Adduci thanked the “dedicated group of resident volunteers” who serve on the village’s advisory committees and commissions as well as members of the Village Board.
“Their commitment and input are extremely valuable, and we should all be grateful for their service,” she said.
Here are some of the highlights of the speech:
■ Adduci expressed hope for future economic development on Madison Street and at Lake and Lathrop, pointing to the hiring of “a large real estate brokerage firm” to assist with developing the village-owned property on Madison between Lathrop and Ashland avenues and a recent court decision re garding the stalled development at Lake and Lathrop. Re garding Lake and Lathrop, Adduci said, “We are committed to moving this project along and are working with Wintrust Bank and its receiver to find a suitable solution.”
versations programs to the recently implemented customer service platform and WaterSmart portal. “Our communication to and with the community have expanded to different platforms and overall eng agement,” she said, noting more e-newsletter subscribers and increased activity on the village’s social media pages.
■ Looking ahead, Adduci said planning for the future begins with finances, citing a balanced budget for 12 consecutive years. “In addition to our property tax and sales tax revenue to fund operations, we continue to pursue grants and other state funding partnerships,” she said, including those with Illinois legislative leaders Emanuel “Chris” Welch, speaker of the House of Representatives, and Don Har mon, Senate president.
■ Ongoing programs include those aiming to eliminate accidents involving pedestrians, bicyclists and vehicles. Public works staf f members have applied a traffic calming toolbox recommended by the village-wide traffic study and aligned with the national Vision Zero campaign to slow traffic on Washington Boulevard with similar projects planned along Lake Street and Thatcher Avenue.
■ Adduci pointed to a partnership with the University of Illinois at Chicago that led to the village’s Climate Action Plan and expansion of the public electric charging stations. She said she anticipates presenting restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers, reviewing tree preservation re gulations and growing participation in composting
■ Noting that protecting the community is “a paramount and consistent village goal,” Adduci thanked Police Chief Jim O’Shea and Fire Chief Tom Gaertner for their leadership. She cited the police department’s ongoing quarterly safety meetings and the fire department’s partnership with Concordia University as examples.
■ Other programs include providing financial assistance with the cost of replacing lead service lines; increased programs benefitting senior citizens; and supporting efforts toward diversity, equity and inclusion.
■ Related to safety, she pointed to the effor ts by members of the Public Works Department to upgrade sidewalks and intersections and installing over 90 stop signs and blinking signs as recommended by the Safe Walking Routes to School program.
■ Adduci also cited improved communication with residents ranging from the Neighborhood Dialogues and Casual Con-
Trustee Vazquez summed up his reaction this way: “I am proud of the accomplishments that the village attained in 2024 and I am optimistic about reaching our goals and initiatives for the coming year, 2025 thank the village president, my fellow village trustees, and our collective village commissions for their ef for ts in making our village consistently financially strong, safe, sound and overall enjoyable. Most of all, I thank our residents for their input and support. It is with our collective interests in making our village a wonderful place to live.”
e local-global-local migrant connection
CROP Walk and CWS reassess in the era of Trump
By TOM HOLMES Contributing Reporter
Participants in the annual CROP Hunger Walk are taking the Trump administration’s free ze on USAID’s spending personally.
Here’s why: In the 41 years this annual event has been held, CROP walkers, in what they call Hunger Walkathon West, have raised over $2 million to feed hungry people at home and abroad.
While President Trump’s values focus on America first, most of the CROP walkers are church people motivated by compassion.
“When I walk,” said Mary Scherer, “I think of people in other countries who must walk for miles to get food and clean water.”
Of the $70,000 raised in the 2024 walk, 25% went to food pantries and nonprofits in this area, and the rest goes to Church World Service (CWS). CROP is a widely reco gnized brand in this area, but Church World Service (CWS), the umbrella nonprofit to which 75% of the money raised by the 2,000 CROP walks in the U.S., is not as well known, so here’s a little background.
Seventeen Christian denominations united to create Church World Service in the years after World War II when much of Europe looked like Gaza does today. At first, farmers would donate a percentage of their harvest and CWS would ship the food to war-torn Europe. Hence the acronym CROP, Christian Rural Overseas Project.
“In our early days,” their website re ports, “the CWS family mobilized more than 11 million pounds of food, clothing and medical supplies for war-torn Europe and Asia.”
What feels so familiar is that 80 years ago CWS began welcoming refug ees from across the pond “who were looking to start new lives in safety, resettling more than 100,000 refugees in our first 10 years.”
Lauren Brightmore, the Development and Event coordinator for Beyond Hunger, said, “The CROP Hunger Walk has been a vital source of support, providing nutritious food to families during a time of unprecedented need in our communities. Last year alone, funds from the walk helped provide 2,900 meals. We are proud to be a longtime partner in this impactful ef fort, working together to reduce food in and security.
“We get USDA commodities and we’ve received ad hoc funding from the state but not on a re gular basis. And beyond the CDBG grant, the majority of the funds raised are through individual donors and private foundations.”
e next CROP Hunger Walk w ill take place on May 4.
And the rest goes to Church World Service (CWS).
Celine Wo znica, a member of the Leadership Team of the Oak Park Migrant Ministry, tells a story that connects the local work, which the CROP walks help fund, with the work done around the world, using the 75% of funds the walkers raise.
Realizing that CWS was one of the organizations that supported her Venezuelan partners, Celine asked them, “Would you like to walk with us?”
When last year’s CROP Hunger Walk day finally came, she didn’t expect too many of the Venezuelans to show up, but to her surprise, 18 Venezuelan men, women and children arrived at Pilgrim Church, where the walk always begins, carrying signs that said, “Thank you, CWS, for feeding mi grants on our way nor th.”
Gaza and Ukraine are not local, but they feel that way because we have gotten to know them so well through constant coverage by the media. Money raised by Hunger Walkathon West is being used to address the needs of people in those war-ravaged countries and Church World Service is one of the few NGOs left, but what is important to understand is that although money raised by CROP walks is vital, the majority of CWS funding comes
from USAID. Think of CWS has the hose and USAID as the faucet.
Last year CWS rece ived $186,438,735 or 84.6% of its budg et from the federal gover nment. USAID relies on nonprofits like CWS to distribute foreign aid because they have been on the ground a long time, know the needs of the people, and know what they are doing. CWS de pends on the federal gover nment because of its vast resources, and no one seems to g et bent of shape by separation of church and state considerations.
For Holly Katz, simply writing a check is not as meaningful as actually getting of f her couch and walking.
“The Crop Walk,” she explained, “creates a unique space for my family and me to pa rticipate in meaningful mission and fundraising work to g ether. It is a jumpingof f point to talk to my kids, kindergar ten and second grade, about food insecurity that exists in our own community, the importance of caring for others, and what it means to come to g ether with other people to raise money for an impor tant purpose.”
You could say that CROP walkers have put their hearts and “soles” into the fundraiser, which this year will be held on May 4. FILE
CRIME
Several Oak Park residences, buildings, targeted by burglars
Oak Park Police have investigated several burglaries over the last week
By BRENDAN HEFFERNAN Staff Reporter
Oak Park Police have responded to several burglary incidents over the last week, according to their published activity reports.
Between the hours of 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. Feb. 25, a man was captured on video surveillance breaking through a glass pane to gain entry to a home in the 200 block of Linden Avenue. Once inside, the man stole clothes, shoes, a backpack, a laptop and wallet with the total value of the items estimated at $1,550, according to police.
Police arrested a 39-year-old Chicago man later that day in connection with the incident.
At 5:20 a.m. Feb. 25 in the 600 block of Harrison Street, an unknown suspect broke down the glass door of a building to steal a delivery package containing paint,
with the cost of the stolen items and the damage to the building estimated at just over $1,000, according to police.
Police had also responded to re ports of a burglary at an apar tment building in the same block at around the same time , as police believe an unknown suspect broke a lock on an exterior door to enter the building and steal a package sometime during the early hours of Feb. 25, the value of which is unknown.
At 2:38 p.m. Feb. 25, an unknown suspect stole $900 worth of tools from a Wood Dale resident’s truck when it was parked in the 900 block of North Lombard Avenue, according to police.
At 2:33 a.m. Feb 24, an unknown suspect entered an unlocked door to a garage at a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue and stole a $500 portable electric car charger, according to police.
Juvenile Robbery Arrests
Two juvenile residents of the Village of Bellwood were arrested at 3 p.m. Feb. 25 in connection with the robbery of a Chicago resident in the 900 block of Lake Street on Nov. 1, according to police.
Domestic Battery Arrest
Police arrested a 40-year-old Oak Park woman on charges of domestic battery Feb. 28, according to police. A name check revealed that the woman had a separate Cook County warrant, also for domestic battery, according to police.
These items were obtained from Oak Park Police Department re ports dated Feb. 24–March 3 and re present a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Any-
one named in these re ports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We re port the race of a suspect only when a serious crime has been committed, the suspect is still at large, and police have provided us with a detailed physical description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest.
History museum honors pair with Heart of Our Villages awards
Bob Trezevant and Laura Maychruk recognized for lives entwined with Oak Park and River Forest
By LACEY SIKORA Contributing Reporter
The Oak Park River Forest Museum will hold its annual gala at Oak Park’s Nineteenth Century Club on Thursday, March 13. At the event, the Historical Society will award tw Heart of Our Villages honors: one to Oak Parker Bob Trezevant and one to River Fo est resident Laura Maychruk.
Frank Lipo, executive director of the society, says the group established the Heart of Our Villages awards in 2018 as a way to reco nize people who have had an outsized impact on the villages.
“We look for people who really have some passion or heart for the villages. They have a real love of community. They don’t just engage with one activity. They have a wide-open heart where they’re very generous,” he said.
There are some loose criteria for selecting one honoree from Oak Park and one honoree from River Forest each year. The selection committee looks for people who have lived in the villages for at least five years, but ideally 20 or more years, and they look for people who volunteer at multiple local institutions, support local not-for-profits, have a respect
multiple things and doing them with passion. Almost from the moment he came to town, he was involved with things from culture to education and architecture.”
Trezevant notes that it was easy to get inolved when he moved to Oak Park in 1977. His wife Katherine Gervais Trezevant was a ourth generation Oak Parker, and he says her family’s involvement in the community made it easy to step right into volunteering.
bers of OPALGA+, the Oak Park Area Lesbian and Gay Association. He was also a member of the Civic Arts Council, the Oak Park Civic Symphony Chorus, an early member of the Windy City Gay Chorus, and a founding member of the Oak Park Concer t Chorale
for diversity, and people who really care about the story-telling and history of Oak Park and River Forest. Lipo likens it to a career achievement award.
Oak Park ’s Bob Trezevant
Lipo says of this year’s honoree from Oak Park, “Bob [Tre zevant] is a person who completely covers the ideal of doing
His first job in the community was with the Festival Theater, which led to a connection with the organization that is now the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Trezevant was an early interpreter and led tours at the Home & Studio for 15 years and at Unity Temple for 30 years, recently earning a pin for his 45 years of service.
He says of his long-term volunteer commitment, “I loved doing it. It’s fantastic having the memories of those early days.”
In 1980, Trezevant was one of the founding investors in Wednesday Journal, and in 1983, he returned to teaching and taught in Oak Park’s District 97 for 15 years.
In 1989, he was one of the founding mem-
After 38 years of mar riage, Katherine Gervais Trez evant died Dec. 24, 2004. Trez evant met his partner, Jer ry Ehernberger, at an OPALGA potluck in 2007. Just a few years ago, Trez evant joined the Nineteenth Century Club
With no signs of slowing down, Trez evant continues to volunteer and be an avid supporter of all things Oak Park He says of his role in the community, “I’m a connector person. I have a lot of energy I have a lot of time.”
He is humbled to be reco gnized with a Heart of Our Village award and says of previous honorees, “There are so many different, talented people out there who are willing to share.”
THE OAK PARK RIVER FOREST MUSEUM
AWARDS
from page 17
River Forest’s Laura Maychruk
Lipo says Maychruk has “been entwined in the fabric of our two villages for a long time.”
As the founder and 25-year owner of the Buzz Café on South Lombard Avenue, Maychr uk moved to an apar tment above the café the day after her wedding. She became a stalwart champion of the Oak Park Arts District and continues to act as the district’s president after selling the business to Kribi Coffee in 2023.
She and her husband have raised four children in River Forest and restored their Victorian home along the way, garnering multiple awards from the River Forest Historic Preservation Commission. While running a business, Maychruk has had a long career as a realtor, specializing in Oak Park and River Forest.
Maychruk, who says her initial response to learning that she was being honored was, “You’ re kidding. Am I worthy?” says that she has always been deeply involved in her community. For 15 years, she hosted candidate for ums for local elections at the Buzz Café, and just this week, she moderat-
ed a for um for candidates for the Oak Park village board for Wednesday Journal. With three of her four kids out of the house, Maychruk says she has a renewed energy and recently joined the board of the Imagine Foundation, a fundraising arm that supports the Masters Facilities Plan at Oak Park and River Forest High School. Through it all Maychruk says that she loves all of her activities in both Oak Park and River Forest noting, “I’m keeping my connection to everything that I love -- making new commitments and keeping old ones.”
Gala details
The OPRF Museum Gala takes place on March 13 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Nineteenth Century Club, 178 Forest Ave. in Oak Park
The night begins with entertainment, hors d’oeurves, and beverages at 6:30 p.m., and the awards ceremony begins at 7:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit the operations of The Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest.
Tickets can be reserved on the Historical Society website: https://oprfmuseum.org/store#!/Event/c/26624115 or by calling 708-848-6755.
Laura Maychruk at Buzz Café in 2019.
PROPER TY TR ANSFERS
Oak Park home sells for $1.2 million
The following property transfers were re ported by the Cook County Clerk from December 2024. Where addresses appear incomplete, for instance where a unit number appears missing, that information was not provided by the clerk.
K P ARK
PROPER TY TR ANSFERS
RIVER FOREST
FOREST P ARK
444 Ferdinand Ave., Forest Park
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS FRIDAY 5 P.M.
Call Viewpoints editor
Ken Trainor at 613-3310
ktrainor@wjinc.com
Feeling old and young, at once
ROak Park Village Hall, present and future
A disturbing experience at the Lake eatre VIEWPOINTS
ecently, most of my family and I tr aveled to San Francisco to help our dear friend and former neighbor celebrate her 70th birthday. Several for mer neighbors rendezvoused there for the weekend celebration — our kids all grew up to gether on the same block.
This was my first time actually visiting SF, although growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, I had many memories of the City by the Bay, including Haight-Ashbury, hippies, Fillmore West, Summer of Love, the Grateful Dead, Dirty Harry. I rented a VRBO house in the Noe Valley neighborhood. All weekend we walked a lot — up the steep streets to Twin Peaks and down the steep streets to the Castro, the Mission District and 24th Street.
BLESOFF
As soon as we arrived, I walked over to the birthday girl’s house. I will never forget strolling up to the intersection of Hoffman Avenue and 22nd Street. At the corner, I had to turn right, but the street disappeared! The sidewalk just dropped out of sight in a sharp 45-de gree downhill angle. This took me by surprise, I’d ver seen anything quite like this before. I had to stop, take it in and reassess.
All at once, I felt both old and young.
So much of our being young is experiencing things for the first time, part of “g rowing up.”
So much of what I take for granted now was a new thing to me when I was young. I remembered San Francisco as a part of my youth, even though I’d never actually been there. I felt young as I turned the corner, as I encountered this new ‘first.’ It was kind of an adventure.
At the same time, as I reached the corner and stopped short and looked down over what felt like the ed ge and gasped slightly, I grabbed for the side of the building to keep my balance. I knew instinctively that I had to proceed with caution. There was no way that I could just keep walking down that steep sidewalk like I would have done if I was back in the ’60s.
This was just an objective fact. I could feel the front of my calf muscles suddenly tighten and the back of my thigh muscles strain as I took small half-steps, trying to keep my balance on that 45-de gree decline.
That made me feel my age. Madeleine L’Engle said that we are always all the ages we have ever been. It makes sense being the “same old same old” and being someone new, both at the same time.
In this context, it makes sense to actually look forward to getting older rather than just fearing or denying it, as most of us do. Yes, as we age there are changes and losses, some of them difficult, some extremely difficult.
And at the same time, there are opportunities and adventures — opportunities to get closer to being the person you’d like to be, as well as opportunities to discover the person waiting to emerge.
Recently, after supporting a dear friend at her father’s burial, I decided to take some time to decompress. I headed to the Lake Theatre in downtown Oak Park to see the latest Captain America movie, A Brave New World, starring Anthony Mackie as the first Black Captain America. My youngest daughter, Gynesis, has conditioned me over the years to become a solid Marvel fan, so I ar rived eager to escape into a world of cinematic storytelling — popcorn in hand, seat war mers on, and recliner in full action. But that brief moment of solace was shattered when I heard a voice yell, “We want the white Captain America back!”
Before I could fully process what I’d heard, multiple voices echoed the same phrase in succession. Though they stopped short of further desecrating Anthony Mackie’s character, the message was clear: a rejection of his presence in a role they deemed reserved for a white man. The blatant racial bias on display was unacceptable I refused to nor malize this kind of behavior. I left the theater and requested a refund for my $7.21 matinee ticket. When I addressed my concer ns with Doug Green, the manager on duty, he seemed unbothered, even raising his voice at me — citing that he was handling multiple issues, including other patrons who had also complained about the same incident. I redirected his frustration toward the true source of the disruption: the young white men in rows M and/or N who had disturbed the peace. He sent employees into the theater to investigate, but as I observed the staff, I noticed a palpable tension among them. One young black woman, in particular, wore an expression of tremendous discomfort, her face reflecting what I can only assume was a mix of unease and resignation. It is sad when one becomes accustomed to such situa-
tions developing a sense of reluctant acceptance.
A woman in line confided in me that she “got chills” when she heard the outburst. Yet she refilled her drink and returned to her seat. I, however, could not bring myself to do the same
The Lake Theatre is the theater of my youth. Though I never lived in Oak Park, my family frequented the area often, given its proximity to our home just beyond Austin Boulevard and Lake Street. Over the years, I’ve watched the neighborhood shift and change, yet my love for the community has never wavered — until now. At this moment, I can no longer ignore the ispers I’ve long heard about racial undertones and civil unrest in Oak Yes, this could have happened anywhere, and undoubtedly is happening somewhere else as I rite this. But I challenge the Oak Park community to come out of hiding and confront the realities of racially charged behavior. This isn’t about a fictional character — it’s about real people who deserve to feel welcome in a space meant for entertainment, not exclusion.
I have never felt unsafe in Oak Park. But now I do. And I find myself questioning whether the community I have cherished for so long has ever truly cherished me in return.
If we are to change as a nation, we must first start with the communities, neighborhoods, and towns that shape the world around us. I felt compelled to share this experience because silence serves no one
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope for a future where I can once again melt into a movie theater seat as simply a lover of film—without my presence, or that of the movie characters being a point of contention. La Tonya James is a resident of Austin.
PHOTO BY ELI ADÉ/ELI ADÉ - © 2024 MARVEL Anthony Mackie in ‘Captain America: Brave New World’
Closing of St. Catherine-St. Lucy
It has been a more transparent and community-focused process than we have come, over decades, to expect from the Catholic Church. And still, the announcement on Sunday that St Catherine-St. Lucy Church will be closed before the end of June is the least surprising outcome of the entire multi-year Renew Our Church drama that has played out in Oak Park and across the Chicago Archdiocese.
From the start, in a time when there aren’t enough priests, there aren’t enough Catholics filling pews and making donations, church buildings continue to age, and maintenance is deferred, the necessary outcome of Cardinal Blasé Cupich’s effort had to be fewer churches
And if there was going to be a consolidation of Oak Park’s four Catholic churches, then the odd church out was going to be St Catherine-St. Lucy. It has the smallest and the least well-heeled congregation.
That doesn’t ease the sting for those current, and so many former parishioners, of this remarkable parish.
In our news story today, Bill Cragg, a longtime church member, rightly points to the distinct eras of this church, which has always straddled Oak Park and Austin.
When the church and school opened decades ago, both were packed with Irish Catholics drawn equally from both neighborhoods. Then in the 1960s and into the 1970s, came Chicago’s mortal sin of racist resegregation of the West Side. Greed in the real estate industry, capitulation by institutions, including the church, and the utter failure of machine political leaders, maximized fear in ethnic whites who abandoned their neighborhoods in a blockby-block pattern that decimated Austin and other communities.
It took decades for the Black West Side to regroup, to claim its political power and to declare its pride of ownership in Austin.
All of this left St. Catherine’s and then in the 1970s the addition of the shuttered St. Lucy church in Austin, as that rare institution working to keep serving both Oak Park and Austin. White Oak Park families abandoned the well-regarded parish school and many left the parish church as well.
What grew and teetered and then settled was a dynamic school serving a Black student body mostly from Austin and not particularly Catholic and a small, deter mined and racially diverse group of congregants
This is one of the most interesting stories in the complicated history of race in Austin and Oak Park
Now the church will close, its future unknown. To the great credit of the Catholic community of Oak Park, Fenwick High School and some muscular nonprofit support, the school only gets stronger and will survive as the rare Catholic school without a church. The Neighborhood Bridge ef fort providing outreach to the West Side seems sincere and real and will continue to operate from the old rectory. Other nonprofits will also share space on the campus at Washington and Austin.
So now it is a third era for St. Catherine-St. Lucy. May it have purpose, necessary resources and leadership worthy of its new mission.
Rev. Martin Marty died last week at the age of 97. A prolific writer, teacher and preacher, he was the kind of Christian who gave Christianity a good name. When I interviewed him in 1997, he was heading into “retirement” but remained active and lived another 28 years. He had a strong connection to Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, where he served early in his career. Mar ty was recently preceded in death by President Jimmy Carter, another Christian who gave Christianity a good name.
Voting for Trump instead KEN TRAINOR
Both were humanists as well as Christians. That’s the key. Jesus was also a humanist, perhaps the ultimate humanist. He connected with people. As those Super Bowl ads like to say, Jesus gets us. If he didn’t, his teachings would have faded into obscurity.
Back then, Marty co-directed the Public Religion Project. He hoped to bring opposing points of view together to talk and “where possible, bring for th the healing instead of only the killing side of religion.” Obviously we have a long way to go on that front, judging by the situation in Gaza and Israel — but also in this country, where far too many “Christians,” for far too long, have been busy giving Christianity a bad name.
I was reminded of all this because today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, 40 days of reckoning, leading up to Easter, celebrating the resurrection of the “ascendant master,” as a friend of mine likes to call Jesus, whom so many Americans claim to follow.
Martin Marty’s call for religious dialogue was admirable, but there are also times when we need to channel our inner biblical prophet. This is one of those times
Not long ago, I heard an old church hymn, a favorite of mine growing up. The refrain is simple and clear: “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Far too many Christians fail that test because they are Christians in name only.
On Ash Wednesday, Catholics get the conspicuous black dot, with ashes from burnt palm fronds, thumbed onto their foreheads as the priest recites some variation of “From dust you came and to dust you shall retur n.” The faithful are well-sooted to think about their mortality, but are they as wellsuited to think about how far they fall short of Christian ideals? Not all Christian denominations indulge in Ash Wednesday, but most ask the question, “What Would Jesus Do?” as a guide to their moral behavior. Some even wear bracelets with “WWJD” to remind them.
I don’t know what Jesus would do in every situa-
tion, but I do know this: Jesus would not have voted for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.
Will we know you are Christian by your vote? The majority of Evangelical Christians and Catholics voted for Trump. Did you understand that, in doing so, you were giving Christianity/ Catholicism a bad name?
Mar tin Mar ty and Jimmy Car ter understood that love is at the hear t of being Christian. In his epistle to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said love is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, does not insist on its own way, is not ir ritable or resentful (or revengeful). It doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing. Instead it rejoices in tr uth.
Does that sound like Donald Trump to you? Just the opposite. Trump is to hate as Jesus is to love. He is a liar and criminal of surpassing cruelty whereas Jesus was a holy, compassionate prophet of transformative love. So how could a Christian vote for someone who has nothing in common with Christ?
Jesus did have a thing or two to say about hypocrites. He famously called them “whitened sepulchers” (appropriate for Christians who support white male dominance). What would Jesus do? He definitely would have chased Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and Elon Musk out of the temple, as he did with the money-changers, for desecrating a holy space.
I’m also pretty sure I know what John the Baptist would do: what he always did, calling sinners to repent. If he were here today, he would say, “If you voted for Donald Trump, you have sinned! How will you repent?”
Wearing sackcloth and ashes was the traditional method. Sackcloth keeps one’s sinfulness close to the skin and a sooty forehead keeps it close to the mind. What would the modern version of re pentance look like?
That’s up to you, but you have to reco gnize you sinned before you can re pent. That part hasn’t changed.
According to Pope Francis, another Christian who gives Christianity a good name, we are all sinners, even the Old Testament prophets who spoke truth to power. Professing to be Christian isn’t enough. You have to earn it. If people don’t know we are Christians by our love, then we have our work cut out for us. And if people know you aren’t truly Christian by your vote, then the prophets of old have a message: Confess your sin and re pent. In Jon Pavlovitz’s wonderful book, If God is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk, he speculates that if Jesus were here today he would say to all of us, “You had one job. Love one another.”
Instead, you voted for Trump.
SHRUB TO WN by Marc Stopeck
We need a strong voter showing
This letter will address two topics on which the League of Women Voters of Oak Park and River Forest (LWVOPRF) has received inquiries:
First, we were asked about the League’s position on term limits for local offices. A fundamental principle of a re presentative democracy is that voters get to choose the candidate that best represents their interests. The national League of Women Voters, apar t from the constitutional limits placed on a President’s term, opposes term limits for the U.S. Congress, and the Illinois League opposes them for the Illinois General Assembly. The organization does not have a position specific to term limits for municipal elections, but if a League were to support them, a local study and consensus would be necessary. Because of the U.S. position, a local League may oppose them without a study. LWVOPRF does not have a position on ter m limits for municipal elections, though it shares the values of the U.S. and Illinois Leagues of re presentative democracy and an election process that reflects voters’ preference.
The League has also been asked about its candidate for ums. The League invites all candidates to participate in forums for state and local elections. As much as we prefer to host forums for voters to lear n about candidates, to avoid any appearance of bias or favoritism, policy prohibits us from hosting them for uncontested races or when only one candidate accepts the invitation.
The League has held forums this year in Oak Park and Elmwood Park and will host a candidate forum for OPRF District 200 on March 13 at 7 p.m. and you can sign-up at the Oak Park Public Library. It will also host a forum for Proviso District 209 on March 18 at 7 p.m. and you can sign up at the Forest Park Public Library. Questions can be submitted in advance to lwvoprf1924@gmail.com; remember to indicate where you want the question asked. Please research the issues, lear n about the candidates, vote your conscience and no matter what, vote. Democracy sorely needs a strong showing this year.
Jane Hastings President, League of Women Voters of OP-RF
WEDNESD AY
JOURNAL
of Oak Park and River Forest
Viewpoints Guidelines
e goal of the Viewpoints section is to foster and facilitate a community conversation and respectful dialogue. Responsible community voices are vital to community journalism and we welcome them. Space is at a premium and readers’ attention is also limited, so we ask that Viewpoints submissions be brief. Our limit for letters to the editor is 350 words. For One View essays, the limit is 500 words. Shorter is better. If and when we have su cient space, we print longer submissions, but when space is limited — as it o en is — we may ask you to submit a shorter version or hold the piece until space allows us to print it.
We reser ve the right to edit submissions. We do not have time to allow the writer to review changes before publication. We also do not have time to do more than super cial fact-checking, and because of our national epidemic of misinformation and conspiracy theories, when writers include statistical evidence to support their opinions, we require them to include the source of that information, such as credible websites, print publications, titles of articles and dates published, etc. Be as speci c as possible so that we and our readers have some way of assessing the credibility of your claims. Links may also be included for the online version. We follow the Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics: seek the truth and report it and minimize harm. As a result, we will do our best not to publish pieces that espouse doubtful or debunked theories, demonstrate harmful bias, or cross the line into incivility. While we will do our best not to engage in censorship, we also do not intend to be used as a platform for misinformation. Your sources for fact-checking are a critical step in keeping the discourse honest, decent and respectful.
All submissions must include your rst and last name and the municipality in which you live, plus a phone number (for veri cation only). We do not publish anonymous letters. One View essays should include a sentence at the end about who you are.
If we receive your submission by 5 p.m. on Sunday, you can expect your opinion to be included in that week’s paper (and online), space permitting.
Pieces can be submitted through our online form at oakpark.com or directly to Viewpoints editor Ken Trainor, ktrainor@wjinc.com. For the latter, we prefer attached Word les or plain text included in the email.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
■ 350-word limit
■ Must include rst and last names, municipality in which you live, phone number (for veri cation only)
‘ONE VIEW’ ESSAY
■ 500-word limit
■ One-sentence footnote about yourself and/or your connection to the topic
■ Signature details as at left
There has been a lot of misinformation circulating in our community re garding the “detracking” of OPRF High School’s freshman curriculum. The misleading narrative is that the school was eliminating Honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. In fact, the exact opposite is true, freshmen in our middle “College Prep” tier have been moved into higher curriculum and rigor honors courses. This was done as a part of the school’s efforts to increase the number of students in the ever-increasing array of higher-level courses
View DISTRIC T 200 C ANDIDAT E
Gen Z and cellphones
Setting the record straight
are halfway through our third year of it
So how is it going? Consider this information recently provided by our administration:
■ Is the district doing what they said they would do?
■ Yes, instead of about 50% of the district’s freshmen enrolling in honors prior to detracking, now about 80% of freshmen take a single honors-level curriculum in all of these three subjects.
■ How are the students doing on standardized testing?
Smartphones were introduced in 2007 but did not reach current capabilities until around 2012. These provide 24-hour internet access, online video games, selfie-based social media, news (real and fake) and all kinds of applications designed to be guile adolescents. Today, 98% of the Gen-Z cohort own smart phones
Teens are now spending 6 to 8 hours per day looking at screens. This includes television, which in the 1990s was 2-3 hours per day, but watching TV is now decreasing steadily. The screen-time statistic does not include school work.
Due to their portability, phones constitute the bulk of the viewing time
If deprived of their phones, many adolescents display classic symptoms of addiction — irritability, anxiety, and insomnia.
In 2008, the prevalence of an anxiety disorder among college students was 10%. In 2020, it was 14%. The age group from 18 to 25 (Gen-Zers) suffered the most: the increase was 139%.
The prevalence of depression among teens, fairly steady at about 13% for girls and 5% for boys before 2010, increased to about 29% and 11%, respectively, in 2021.
The decision to detrack was the result of an in-depth comprehensive review of the school’s freshman curriculum and academic data, which the administration undertook in the 2018-19 school year. The data confir med what was obvious by looking into the school classrooms. College Prep (middle track) classes disproportionately enrolled students of color, while honors and AP classes disproportionately enrolled white students
The data also showed that this difference was not based on ability. We found that about 70% of our Colle ge Prep students had PSAT scores that aligned with their peers in honors classes; they just were not taking the honors classes. Years of ef for ts to shift these enrollment trends had proven unsuccessful, so a dif ferent approach was necessary.
With the enthusiastic support of the high school’s faculty and board of education, the district decided to eliminate only the College Prep level courses for freshmen in English, History and Science and replace them with honors-level courses. This change would help to ensure more students would be prepared to take advantage of the vast array or Honors and AP classes offered in their sophomore, junior and senior years.
Kudos to our faculty who spent the next three years putting in a remarkable amount of work to prepare for this change. They looked at what other detracked districts had done. They put in tons of hours of revamping lesson plans and participating on professional development programs. They spent countless hours collaborating on how to support students who need more help, while also challenging our more academically successful students
In 2022-23 the revised freshman curriculum was launched. Current juniors and sophomores are the first two cohorts to experience the detracked, honors level curriculum and freshmen
■ Freshmen take the PSAT 8/9 in April each year. The two classes of freshmen who have gone through the detracking experience are performing right on par with their peers from before we detracked.
■ Last year our freshmen performed better than classes before detracking
■ How are the students doing beyond freshman year?
We need more years of data to really determine trends but the initial signs are positive. For this year’s junior class, which is the first to have detracked, 24% of all course enrollments are in AP classes. That is up from no higher than 19% over the previous four years. For our Black students, 13% of course enrollments are in AP classes, up from no higher than 9% over the previous four years.
By no means does this mean complete success. The administration has been consistently clear that there is much work yet to do, but the early signs tell us something very clear: we are moving in the right direction.
Unfortunately that is simply not the story you hear from certain community members who are “cherry picking” data points to suit the story they want to tell, one of doom and gloom. However, if you look honestly at the data — you will find that this is a school moving in the right direction.
It will take several more years to know for sure if the district’s efforts are truly succeeding. But so far detracking appears to be having the effect we were hoping: More students are realizing that they can take on tougher challenges and achieve greater levels of success that they may have thought possible.
As a community isn’t that what we want for all of our kids?
Fred Arkin is an incumbent member of the District 200 school board who is running for reelection on April 1.
There are messaging apps (for example, WhatsApp), social media apps (Twitter, Instagram), and news sites, to mention a few. These come with “alerts,” and the average teen receives 192 of them per day. This means the phone buzzes on average every five minutes.
Gen-Zers spend less time in inperson contact with friends. In 2010, they spent about 130 minutes per day with friends; in 2020, this dropped to 45 minutes
The%age of students getting less than seven hours of sleep per day in 2020 rose dramatically from 2010: almost 50% for girls and 40% for boys.
And the big one, suicide rates, saw an increase of 91% for boys in 2019 compared to 2010. For girls, the rates increased by 167% over the same time period.
The inflection point on all the cited data was 2010, the year the negative statistics for those Gen-Z kids started to go the wrong way. So what happened in 2010?
In The Anxious Generation published in 2024 (the source of all the date from above), Jonathan Haidt lays out a grand hypothesis. All of the negative trends cited correlate with cellphone usage
Gover nor Pritzker has recently proposed the banning of cellphones in schools. Maybe he is on to something. James Whalen MD, Oak Park
My life here
“I Lived Here” is a book I wish I could publish one day, something like that.
As I am now a grown woman, I realized what everyone was saying, that some things don’t mix well, like water & oil. The saying blood is thicker than water, hmm? I don’t know how it once was.
The struggle here in Oak Park, having white and black heritage, or a percentage of various colors, ethnicities, is challenging to most in the community
The one for all and “just us.”
The great historians in the community faded away. What happened? Where is the commitment, the dedication, and civic duty? All my love for this community also faded away with my identity. Along came failures in life, and my teachers are not around, but as I say to anybody who failed, dust yourself off and try again.
Trying again always beats a failure. Make sure you are around people who love you, or at least care about you who can support you. This the most important part of our life, having people around who care about you, family and friends.
The organizations in the community wanting to be in control is not caring. As I was saying, I’m not very good at writing, but I try anyway. My grammar is not the best.
I hope one day to get my life back. My education was the most important part of my life in Oak Park — maybe a book, some old pictures, important birth certificates, important family photos.
Tasha Moss/Hudson Oak Park
No one asked for these bike lanes
Nicole Chavas wrote about “myths” concerning bike lanes [Dispelling myths about bike lanes, Viewpoints, Feb. 19], but make no mistake, her piece actually re presented her opinions, which disreg arded the plight of homeowners like me who will be uniquely affected by bike paths placed directly in front of our homes.
The village is considering adding bike lanes along Harvard and Le Moyne, located just two blocks inside the north and south edges of Oak Park, which have many homes on them. Here are the main issues that we, as the affected homeowners, have:
1. The village would remove almost all parking along these streets. Many of us have front doors that face these streets and if the parking is taken away we would lose our convenient access to our homes that we use multiple times each day. This loss would also create genuine hardships for older and handicapped homeowners and family members who need this easy and
safe access. Is it fair for homeowners on the bike path to lose their parking?
2. Ample bike lanes exist just a few blocks away from the proposed bike lane additions, and avid bikers on our block say they can easily access the existing lanes. Therefore, why would we allocate tax dollars to build the new lanes? Our village has far more urgent needs for our taxpayer dollars.
3. Finally, Harvard and Le Moyne are largely vacant to all traf fic, including cars, bikes and foot traffic. No one is asking the village to install these additional bike lanes in these locations, so if no one comes out to use them, it will have been a major mistake of an investment. Our village has so many other needs that we just can’t af ford everything. And bike lanes that have not been asked for, in areas where they will likely go unused, is just too big a gamble.
Joe Gordon Oak Park
e door was open …
On Halloween night 2023 near midnight, my What ’s App notifications star ted blowing up. As a volunteer for the police station response team, I assumed a new bus had arrived at D15 and I was needed to go help. Instead, I lear ned that many of the new neighbors were at Oak Pa rk Village Hall and help was needed. The next thing I knew, I found myself at village hall loading people into my car and driving to Good She pherd Church
As I walked up helping carry the belongings of a single mom and her two children and helping usher the kids in the right direction, there was a woman holding the door open to the church. She smiled and welcomed us. I had no idea who she was until later in the night when I found out it was our village president, Vicki Scaman. I watched Vicki that night busily helping everyone get settled in the basement of the church and thought to myself, “Wow, that is leadership in action.” When I left the church in the middle of the night, Vicki was still there.
Over the next few months, I had the op-
portunity as part of the Oak Park Task Force to see how Vicki leads as I sat through several board meetings. She is a leader who truly listens to both the community and the trustees the public has elected. It always struck me how she collaborated so well and never seemed to have her own agenda. She seemed to always want to hear both sides and then come to a decision, ag ain never pushing her own agenda on other s. As I watched her opponent, Ravi Parakkat, in these meetings I saw the opposite
Now is the time that we can make an impact in our community. Should you vote for a candidate based on one issue? No. Should you vote for a candidate based on how they will lead? Absolutely.
Oak Park needs a leader who will collaborate, listen and engage the community, not push their own agenda. I will be voting for Vicki Scaman, and I encourage you all to do the same. Whatever you do, vote. It matters, now more than ever.
Lisa Desai
Oak Park resident for 11 years
TLeaders who respond to historic crises
here are moments in public life when elected officials choose to meet historic issues — or not.
In the ’60s, village trustees in Oak Park took on an issue few municipalities in the U.S. were willing to face: passing a local fair housing ordinance to start undoing more than a century of race-based discriminatory housing practices.
By 1967, only 11 black families lived in Oak Park, including the family of Dr. Percy Julian. Many of these families had to purchase their homes through “straw buyers,” because homeowners and realtors would not close a contract with Black buyers.
In 1968, the Oak Park Village Board, over heated opposition, passed the Fair Housing Ordinance that prohibited panic-selling as well as placing “For Sale” signs in front yards. T hey did so against a ba ckdrop of physical threats to board members. Two trustees voted against that ordinance (See https://www. oakpark.com/2018/05/29/looking-back-ata-pivotal-time-in-oak-park-history)
A second historic moment for Oak Park arrived on Halloween in 2023. For the prior year, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas had been sending tens of thousands of newly arrived migrants, mostly from Venezuela, to Chicago by the busload. Hundreds of these new arrivals camped in a tent city outside the Austin Police District headquarters. Many had been accessing showers and free clothing at nearby St. Catherine-St. Lucy Church in Oak Pa rk
When freezing temperatures hit on Halloween night, sleeping bags froze to the ground. Small children walked around the encampment in short pants, T-shir ts and clogs, despite the freezing temperatures. The city of Chicago was overwhelmed and unresponsive to the growing humanitarian crisis.
Then an ad hoc group of Oak Parkers responded. Oak Park pastors opened their church basements. And the migrants found themselves in warm, if crowded, church halls in Oak Park.
With the leadership of Village President Vicki Scaman and support from some but not all of the trustees, an action plan developed. In an unprecedented way, village government and hordes of local volunteers collaborated to address the crisis. With state and county funding, a plan eventually came together to transition the remaining migrants to a central “family transitional shelter” at St. Edmund Church Vicki Scaman led the charge in finding a solution. This had not been on her agenda or anyone else’s. But she saw the humanitarian crisis and acted.
The same cannot be said for her opponent in the upcoming village president election, Trustee Ravi Parakkat. He voted against the transitional shelter plan, even though the village has now been almost totally reimbursed for its out-ofpocket costs. He saw the migrant issue as someone else’s problem and a distraction from the village’s focus.
Because the plan had funding not only for the shelter but also for next-ste p housing, and because of a Herculean ef fort by Oak Park village employees and residents, the remaining shelter residents quickly transitioned to rental housing and the shelter closed after operating for several months.
So Oak Park has faced two out-of-thebox existential crises in the last 60 years: fair housing in the ’60s and the recent migrant crisis. Unfortunately, with the goings-on in Washington, DC, a third crisis, this time a constitutional one, may be at hand.
We will need strong political leadership at the local level over the next four years to counter potentially unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration. This is not the moment for a villa ge president who looks for ways not to get involved in the issues of the day.
That’s why I will be voting for Vicki Scaman’s re-election in the upcoming village election.
Jack Crowe was executiv e director of the short-lived Oak Park Family Transitional Shelter at St. Edmund Parish.
JACK CROWE
King Lear or Willy Loman?
I’m trying hard to be optimistic about the country’s government. At times it seems like a madcap tragicomedy featuring Trump, multicolored hair and pumpkin-colored face, at once oblivious, but also easily slighted, delivering daily shocks to our now-fragile democracy.
I hope Trump stays alive because Vice President Elon Musk — oops, sorry, J.D. Vance — might be worse. Or not. (Wait, both Musk and Vance are unthinkable, although you would not be blamed for thinking Musk is already the vice president while Vance has merely been dispatched to Europe to insult our allies.)
Meanwhile, back in the Oval Office, children are the new power accessory. Musk, who has 13 children, shows up for work (exactly what is his job?) with a son on his shoulders, the tyke wearing a mini-size cashmere overcoat and mouthing off at the President. What are we to think? That this ruthless genius (Musk, not Trump, silly) is “just like us?”
Not quite. He has about a dozen children, including this one, whose name is X Æ A-Xii, and whose mother’s first name is Grimes. What’s most unusual is the fact that egomaniac Trump looks on placidly, almost lovingly, while Musk takes over and upstages him.
Musk has insinuated himself into the role (if not the name) of vice president. He wears a baseball cap, even in the Oval Office, while Trump is holding a press conference. Do not be surprised if all Oval Office staffers start wearing Trump baseball caps I wonder if the Cabinet and Republicans in Congress will follow suit. If they do, I suggest the Dems wear beanies with mini-rotors on them, even if just for a day. Come to think of it, beanies with rotors would be a great way for members of Congress to signal that any speaker is spouting hot air. Is this speaker boring, lying, and/or running too long? Turn on your beanies!
Could Trump be losing his edge? He hasn’t mocked people with handicaps recently, and unless the Secret Service is being paid off, he hasn’t raped anyone either.
Maybe he longs for “what might have been” if his own older sons, Don Jr. and Eric, had become self-made billionaires and hung around the Oval Office with their children, his real grandchildren. Maybe his sons are not being phased out in favor of Musk, but they’re definitely not as omnipresent as Musk. And not nearly as rich either. And that matters to their father.
The situation is also a bit like Arthur Miller’s play, Death of a Salesman, only in reverse. In the classic play, Biff and his younger brother, Happy, reminisce about their adolescence and bemoan their father Willy Loman’s criticism of them. Willy, ever the salesman, points out to his sons that although their friend Bernard is smart, he is not “well liked,” which will hurt him in the long run.
For Trump, of course, the equivalent of well-liked is boorish and ruthless. He would be horrified, and undoubtedly jealous, if his sons bested him in anything, particularly humanity
Fred Arkin has made an impact
I endorse Fred Arkin to remain a member of the District 200 Board of Education. I have known Fred since his first term on the D200 board. He attended every single meeting of the Imagine OPRF Working Group in 2017-2018, the only board member to do so. I found his commitment admirable at the time. But as I’ve gotten to know Fred better and seen his work as a colleague over the past two years, now I understand it’s simply who Fred is: someone who works incredibly hard, often behind the scenes, to serve our students. He embodies the kind of board member we want: someone who shows up, does the work, and makes an impact.
I’ve also come to understand the value of Fred’s vast institutional knowledge. He attended OPRF, he has coached at OPRF for decades, and was first elected to the board in 2015. He is able to question the administration and push back in ways people newer to the school simply can’t, and he doesn’t hesitate to do so
His perspective as one of the three Jewish members of the D200 board has been valuable, as well as his professional expertise as an insurance executive. He has singlehandedly saved the district significant dollars on insurance policies and claims simply by asking the right questions.
The achievements of the district over the past decade are Fred’s achievements, too: development of the Behavior Education Plan and Racial Equity Policy; the first major capital improvements in 50 years; finally rightsizing the fund balance; demanding a rigorous curriculum and access for all students
But all of this work continues. Fred’s institutional knowledge, expertise, and willingness to work incredibly hard are going to be crucial to OPRF’s future success.
With great confidence in his impact, I support Fred Arkin for a new ter m on the D200 board and hope you will too
Librar y board needs new leadership
I had always thought of the Oak Park Public Library as a motherhood-and-apple pie sort of place, gover ned by lovers of community, books, and learning. Sadly, I am no longer comfor table with its gover nance. Consider:
Per a March 2024 Wednesday Jour nal editorial: “… the search resulting in [executive director] Dixon’s hiring was pitted with missteps and restar ts ...”
T he board bungled the abrupt firing of the highly-reg arded executive director it hired — Joslyn Bowling Dixon — without due process. And now the board is moving to hire a new executive director with only weeks left in its ter m, although four seats — a board majority — are up for election. How can any new hire reflect the board’s vision when that board and that vision aren’t yet known?
Clearly the library board needs new, competent leaders. For tunately, there are three such candidates. Both Me g an Butman and Bruc e Brigell hold master ’s de grees in library science/ studies. Butman brings 30 years’ experience as a law librarian. Brigell was a public libraria n for over 40 years. Daniel Suber has 45 years’ experience as a lawyer. Had these three seasoned professionals been on the library board, I’m confident the misste ps noted ab ove never would have happened
I urge you to vote for Butman, Brigell, and Suber, and not for the two incumbents in the race: Matthew Fruth and Maya Ganguly. These incumbents support the last-minute hiring of a new executive director and they abruptly voted to fire Dixon, thereby losing my confidenc e. Judith Alexander Oak Park
Butman, Suber & Brigell for librar y board
The Illinois State Library lays out clear ethical responsibilities for library trustees, which I believe the cur rent library board failed to follow. As such I will not be supporting any incumbents running for re-election.
The Trustee Facts File, which is publicly available, says a trustee is to “refer staf f grievances or problems to the library director, who has full responsibility for managing staff; refrain from becoming involved in controversy or conflict among staf f.” It’s clear from the firing of Joslyn Dixon Bowling and the circumstances surrounding the dismissal that the current library board failed in this re gard.
Further more, I have also seen some other candidates in the race refer to “listening to the staff” as
part of their platform, which concerns me greatly. Trustee Facts File also notes that the only staff member that the board manages is the executive director and, as such, any board communication with staff that didn’t take place through the executive director is undermining and inappropriate.
In my opinion, there are three candidates in this race who are most qualified to lead the library into a new era: Megan Butman, Daniel Suber, and Bruce Brigell. I’ve spoken with all three of them and they all have a strong understanding of what it means to be an excellent public library trustee. I hope you’ll join me in supporting them on April 1.
Dan Bostrom Oak Park
Tim Brandhorst River Forest
Ravi will revitalize the village
From 2019 through 2024, the village of Oak Park paid a large sum to two architectural fir ms for multiple ideas/drawings for a new village hall, and we are still barely of f the ground. The cost estimate for this venture is over $100 million and counting, not including additional costs such as relocation during construction.
This approach is fiscally irresponsible. The funding for this venture will come from higher property taxes that may price many of us out of Oak Park. Don’t believe the claim that there will be significant funding from other sources. Oak Park needs to stay focused on what we really need, specifically a reasonably-priced new police facility and a larger, more diverse tax base through commercial and residential development. Let’s fill up all those empty
storefronts and make Oak Park look more lively.
Ravi Parrakat has clearly demonstrated his ability to work with business enterprises and has accomplished impressive results by creating the highly successful Takeout25 to shore up restaurants during the COVID pandemic; he can do it again by revitalizing our suffering business district.
Ravi has committed to voting No for an unnecessary new village hall and Yes for a badly needed police facility We need to keep Oak Park affordable and ef ficient. On April 1, I will vote for Ravi for Oak Park village president.
George Uslenghi Oak Park resident since 1971
Trump’s tiresome headline grabs
Turning Gaza into a U.S.-built “Riviera” was just another Trumpian grab for a headline. It’s long been obvious that Trump can’t stand to let a day go by without making “news,” no matter how ridiculous. Trashing international laws and nor ms is par for the course with this wannabe autocrat. No wonder it has been roundly rejected by so many in that re gion and around the world.
More than that, it conjures up unwelcome memories of 19th-century colonialism. European powers, certain that they “knew better” than the people who had lived in the Middle East for centuries, divided vast territories into pieces that they assigned to their rule. Just as in so much of Africa, those arbitrary and irrational divisions, imposed by imperialists, have led to conflicts that have endured
for decades. Palestinians, for example, are still waiting for a land to call their own.
It smells like Putin 2.0. Trump doesn’t want to be outdone by the Russian dictator, whose ravenous hunger for ter ritory led to his attack on Ukraine. So Trump threw out expansionist claims on Greenland, the Panama Canal, and even the whole of Canada before this latest brainstorm.
Congress must live into its status as a co-equal branch of our government. For our own sake as a democracy, and for our standing as a responsible member of the family of nations, they must put an end to this nonsense quickly and courageously. That means now!
Fred Reklau Oak Park
Parakkat for village president
Last week’s forum at the public library was ridiculous and poorly moderated. There is a reason the League of Women Voters are trained in conducting these candidate for ums. That every candidate is asked and responds to the same question within a specific time frame is cor rect procedure and would have prevented the lengthy, unprofessional, and ongoing spat between the two presidential candidates. Next time, allow the OP-RF LWV do what they do best.
That being said, building a new brick-and-
mortar village hall when most everything residents need to do can be accomplished through remote technology and ingenuity, is a preposterous and costly venture. That is why I will vote for Ravi Parakkat for board president. A new village hall is an exercise in vanity with complete disre gard for the present and future taxpayers who must foot the bill for a building that belongs in Mayberry.
And about those leaves …
e need to listen to all perspectives
A recent letter to the Wednesday Jour nal [Viewpoints, Feb. 26] supports Nathan Mellman and Joshua Gertz’s candidacy for the District 200 school board stating, “What you want is a board member … who can listen openly to the experience of all. ... The board must … respond to all voices at the school and make sure none are negated or dismissed. None! The board must be able to recognize when student or faculty views cross a line and threaten the legitimacy of other perspectives.”
Do Mellman and Gertz have these qualities?
Last year, Mellman, Gertz, and others filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Attor ney General against District 200, OPRF High School, and the faculty advisors of an OPRF student club. The complaint claims that the club and its advisors (one of whom is Jewish) engaged in numerous antisemitic activities. These are extremely serious charges. Do Mellman and Gertz really “listen openly to the experience of all”?
Sources:
Maureen Darcy Oak Park
The link to the complaint is in this letter to Wednesday Journal: https://www.oakpark.com/2024/07/16/ oprf-must-address-antisemitism-complaint
Here’s the link directly to the complaint: https://www.documentcloud.org/ documents/24798102-request-to-investigate-d200-teachers-and-d200-signed/?resp onsi ve=1&title=1
For example, the complaint attacks as antisemitic presentations at OPRF by Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University emeritus professor, an expert on Palestinian history. The student club wanted to hear Professor Khalidi’s perspective. Before filing the complaint, Mellman, Gertz, and others unsuccessfully lobbied OPRF to bar Khalidi’s presentation. This effort was misguided; Khalidi is generally recognized as a preeminent scholar, and he has lectured at many schools. Cancel culture and censorship have no place in Oak Park. D200 school board members must firmly support students’ exposure to diverse viewpoints. Does the complaint against Professor Khalidi and attempts to ban him raise concerns that on the school board Mellman and Gertz might “cross a line and threaten the legitimacy of other perspectives” that conflict with their own? Students must have opportunities for critical thinking on subjects beyond their comfort zone.
Jacobson’s love of community
In a time of darkness, I look for light and clarity. And one beam is very clearly coming from the candidacy of Jenna Leving Jacobson for village trustee. I have known Jenna and her family for four or five years, and I know her as a dynamic thinker and speaker as well as a doer. For years, she has worked at both the state and local levels on the issue of gun-violence prevention, finding her way through the byzantine legislative and administrative channels to bring change and enhance safety for all.
I have heard her say that the best cure for despair is action, and so she has stepped up, willing to take on this new role of trustee — countering her own despair as well as mine. I do not
need to tell you everything she stands for, as she clearly ar ticulates her platform here: https://www.jenna4optrustee.com/
But I will quote from her website because what she says so clearly speaks to me: “We find ourselves in a moment in history where our democratic institutions are in peril, and the most vulnerable among us are rightfully fearful of what’s to come. I am committed to defending people power, and leading by putting our community first. Because when love of community is at the core of governance, every one of us can thrive.”
Thank you, Jenna. Vote for Jenna! Susan Messer Oak Park
Jim Poznak Oak Park
I am supporting Nate Mellman and Josh Gertz for the District 200 school board and their plank to “challenge all students academically.” Each student must be supported, especially if they fall into the cracks. This is personal for our family
My wife and I moved to Oak Park in 1982, before kids, for the reasons many of us did: a diverse community, welcoming, where schools are prized, particularly the high school. We expected the kids we hoped to have would get a great education.
When our daughter started school in District 97, we learned differently. She struggled for years. We asked for help but things never improved. It wasn’t until middle school that we made a breakthrough. On our own, we found private resources that diagnosed her lear ning issues and provided tools. One of the things we learned was that she missed lear ning critical reading skills early on, which went unnoticed by her teachers and compounded year after year
Ban unregulated THC products Mellman & Gertz for D200
Unregulated THC poses a serious risk to our community. As parents, residents, and public health advocates, we support an Oak Park ban on products containing unregulated for ms of THC, including Delta-8.
1. Unregulated THC products have unsafe contents and unknown risks.
Although naturally occurring Delta-8 THC is barely detectable in hemp and marijuana plants, its synthetic manufacturing is used to create products with unknown drug quantities and contents. Studies that have evaluated Delta-8 products found they often have vastly varying amounts of Delta-8 THC, some contain Delta-9 THC in clearly illegal quantities, and some even contain pesticides and heavy metals
Since these products are unregulated, due to a 2018 loophole in the U.S. Farm Bill, there is no requirement to standardize its psychogenic or other contents and no requirement to accurately market the product. Consequently, users do not actually know what they are consuming in terms of quantity or content. There is no guaranteed safe version of unregulated THC.
2. Delta-8 products are marketed to and available to youth.
This unregulated manufactured psychoactive compound is being added to gummies and candies, energy drinks, vape cartridges,
She had to relearn to read, at our expense. We thought OPRF would give her a new start. New teachers and new resources. But it was more of the same.
When she entered D200, our daughter’s IEP followed, as did her problems. Support always felt lacking. At one meeting about her IE P, 10 or so staf f attended. It star ted of f with a staf f member saying, “You all know my job is to say no.” To which everyone laughed! We were li kely not the first, or the last, to be humiliated this way. That is my one memory of her experience at OPRF
Our daughter went on to colle ge and to rece ive two master’s de grees, despite her rock y star t.
Our granddaughter is a future Huskie, and I am looking to Nate and Josh on the board to provide a better opportunities for her
Alan Peres Oak Park
Make your voice matter
Your voice won’t matter if you don’t vote in the upcoming village election, April 1. Oak Park has consistently had a voter tur nout of over 80% for presidential elections but only 18% for municipal elections So many important decisions that affect our daily lives here in the village are made by our local gover nment, yet we don’t make our voices heard by voting.
This year we will be voting on three out of the six village trustees, village clerk and village president. To learn how the candidates will respond to the climate crisis specifically, there will be a Climate Candidates Forum on March 10 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at the Community Recreation Center, 229 Madison St. If you care about this issue — and all of us have a huge stake in it — please attend, ask questions and lear n about where these candidates stand on what the village should be doing.
We are all dismayed to see federal funding and gover nment staff being cut, government agencies under attack, nonprofits going bankrupt, and the national scene getting worse by the day, so we need to act at the state and local level about the things we care about.
trustees have begun to address climate change in a variety of ways, such as passing the Building Electrification Ordinance, the Energy Efficiency Grants Program, and building additional electric vehicle charging stations Very soon they will be deciding whether to allocate an additional $500,000 to help decrease residential multifamily building emissions and make it easier for businesses to get permits for electrification. We need to maintain and accelerate these kinds of sustainability efforts and we need a board of trustees who will vote to take this kind of action.
In addition to the March 10 forum, you can also lear n more about the candidates in Wednesday Journal.
If you or anyone you know owns a home or condo, has children in school here, enjoys the parks, relies on law enforcement, or uses the sidewalks and streets, please remember that many decisions about our biggest daily life issues are made locally. Don’t let a small minority choose the future of our village. For addressing climate change as well as for addressing all the services and infrastructure we rely on every day here, it is essential that you vote
and other products marketed to and increasingly consumed by our youth. In a 2023 nationally representative survey of 12th grade students in the U.S., 1 in 9 reported using Delta-8 THC to get high in the past year Furthermore, a rising number of school-age youth are being hospitalized due to poisoning or overdosing caused by ingesting unregulated for ms of THC products
3. Oak Park has historically been a leader in protecting its community.
An increasing number of states and local Illinois municipalities are banning or regulating novel synthetic and psychoactive products, including those with Delta-8 THC. Our village trustees seem inclined toward regulation (i.e., age restriction to 21 and above). This movement toward addressing this threat to our community’s young persons is commendable, but we can do better. We support a ban of unregulated THC, regardless of age, until these products can be regulated. Please do not let anyone be an unknowing victim of these harmful products because we missed a chance to protect them.
Abigail Silva, PhD, MPH; Christina R. Welter, DrPH, MPH; Suzanne Feeney, PharmD; Kate Odom, PsyD; Judy A. Carter, MD; Janet Cosbey, PhD; Jill Baker BSN, RN Oak Park Department of Health commissioners
Please think about the implications The people we choose matter. The current
Pamela Tate Oak Park Climate Action Network
Jenna Leving Jacobson for trustee
During the 2024 national election cycle as a Gen Z voter and new colle ge graduate with a de gree in Special Education, I voted for candidates who vowed to care for all its constituents
After the disappointing loss on the national level, I used this same candidate criteria in our local election. The Oak Park village trustee candidate who will utilize our local government to take care of all its citizens and live into our village’s values of inclusivity and diversity is Jenna Leving Jacobson. As Jenna has often re peated, “Government is one of the ways we take care of each other.”
I met Jacobson through her work with Moms Demand Action and have witnessed her steadfast promise to care for Oak Park’s children and make our neighboring communities safer as well. As a Moms Demand leader, Jenna successfully advocated for districts 97 and 200 to provide families with communication about safely securing firearms in their homes.
Jacobson also supports victims of gun violence with her work in Austin’s Mercy Garden of Peace and Healing. This community garden provides a green space for gun violence survivors and a food source for our neighbors. Jenna believes, “Our local gover nment should coordinate more across local municipal bodies as well as regionally to solve problems that don’t begin and end at the Oak Park borders.”
Jacobson’s housing platfo rm addresses our le gacy as a community with progressive housing policies. As a trustee, Jenna promises to implement these policies effectively and equitably, again living into our values to foster an inclusive and diverse community.
Vote for Jenna Leving Jacobson for Oak Park village trustee on April 1, a candidate who lives into our values and believes that government is one of the ways we take care of each other.
Meenah Harbaugh Oak Park
Why Gertz & Mellman make sense
We believe that infor med and objective leadership focused on student academic success above all is critical for the success of our students. That’s why we wholeheartedly endorse Josh Gertz and Nate Mellman for the District 200 high school board.
Josh and Nate bring a common-sense, data-driven approach to ensuring that every student is given the maximum support to succeed — without reckless spending, ineffective policies, or lowered standards. Their platform is built on financial responsibility, educational excellence, and school accountability, making them the right choice to maximize student achievement and restore effectiveness to our school system.
We support Josh and Nate because:
■ • They oppose the excessive spending of the past on non-academic projects and on the ballooning administrative costs that divert critical resources from core academic needs, at the expense of teaching staf f and resources.
■ • Josh and Nate advocate for tailored learning environments, ensuring that every child — whether in need of extra
support, on track, or excelling — gets the right resources to succeed.
■ • The current disciplinary policies have not curbed disruption or improved behavior while making it harder for teachers to teach and students to learn.
Josh and Nate support a return to reasonable and accountable student behavior policies that keep classrooms focused and productive for all students
Data shows that if a child meets the requirements to graduate from high school and does not become a single parent, they have a 95% chance of never living in poverty. We can make a difference in the lives of those who need our support the most. The future of the success of our high school students depends on leadership that values responsibility, and prioritizes real student success
Josh Gertz and Nate Mellman are the right candidates to bring back transparency, effective teaching, and responsible gover nance to D200.
Charles & Theresa Melcher
Oak Park
Parakkat is scally responsible
At the Feb. 24 candidate forum, Village President Vicki Scaman accused her opponent, Trustee Ravi Parakkat, of “sensationalism” re garding his concerns about the proposed village hall project costs. However, Parakkat’s concerns are grounded in responsible governance. As of August 2024, building a new police station and renovating the existing village hall could cost as much as $138 million, while redeveloping the entire village hall campus could exceed $144 million. These estimates don’t include transition costs such as temporary facilities, relocation, unexpected structural issues, utility upgrades, site work, material price increases, and unforeseen project delays.
Additionally, financing costs and interest over 20-30 years could push the total higher. In July 2023, Trustee Parakkat voted “no” for the redevelopment of the village hall campus and advocated for the necessary police station only, unlike his opponent.
(This can be verified by viewing the July 2023 Village Board meeting – The
entire meeting is 4 hours 20 minutes. You can see this vote by scrolling to approximately 3 hours 14 minutes).
Parakkat’s focus on these costs reflects his commitment to fiscal responsibility. Identifying potential financial challenges isn’t sensationalism but a vital part of making informed decisions to ensure projects are both necessary and financially viable. With estimated costs of this magnitude, this project has the potential to impact property taxes and the village’s long-term finances. Furthermore, once the village commits to an expensive course of action, it becomes difficult to reverse. It may be sensationalism for residents who can af ford it, but catastrophic for those who are barely holding on. If you want a leader who prioritizes fiscal responsibility, transparency, and protecting the interests of all Oak Park residents, vote for Ravi Parakkat for village president.
Sarah Spelman Oak Park
Ravi does his homework
We are lucky to have the opportunity and choice of Ravi Parakkat as Oak Park president, and he has my vote. He is a brilliant, creative, can-do, will-do leader with vision backed by the facts and his compassion for others.
He first came to my attention with his brilliant “Takeout 25” plan for the Oak Park community to keep its restaurants alive during COVID — and it worked! He did the math (number of restaurants in Oak Park, number of Oak Parkers and families, amount of money that would be needed by each restaurant to help them survive the pandemic per week/month). No tax dollars involved, just a well-publicized (thank you, Wednesday Jour nal!) campaign
Ravi understands that the pointless, unproductive village board meetings about building a new and unnecessary
Do you trust
Re: “Musk team seeks to access IRS system containing taxpayers’ records” (Chicago Tribune, Feb. 18)
Elon Musk’s hacker squad are on the verge of gaining access to every American’s private tax returns, Social Security numbers, and bank account details. The access granted Musk by President Trump has already enabled Musk to cut off government payments. Musk has used this power to destroy several major federal agencies. Who feels comfortable giving Musk permission to access their personal financial data? With access to your bank account, Musk will have the ability to empty your bank account and transfer the money to his own pocket.
Do you trust Elon Musk with your life
Village Hall are both a waste of time and, if successful, will add to the annual onerous tax bills that will not be tolerated by the taxpayers of Oak Park. He again did the math and he knows that one of the main reasons that longtime Oak Parkers leave the village is because of the current high tax burdens. Adding to each household’s tax burden to pay for a new and unnecessary village hall will gut the village’s tax base. Ravi does his homework, and he is a realist.
We have an opportunity to put a cleareyed, creative, can-do visionary at the helm of Oak Park who will explore, out-ofthe-box but realistic options to grow our village in the traditions that drew us all to Oak Park and what we lo ve about our village. Let’s give him our vote! Rya Ben-Shir 43 years in Oak Park
Elon Musk?
savings? Do you trust him with the power to cut off Social Security payments to anyone he finds objectionable? If a known criminal organization suddenly gained this level of access, Americans would be outraged Trump has given absolute power to Elon Musk to access every bank account of every American.
Does anyone trust him that much? In the name of efficiency, he may decide to skip the IRS and simply cut of f our tax refunds. He could literally take every penny from every American bank account, and hide the theft using cryptocurrency.
Or not even bother to hide it. Who could stop him?
Tom DeCoursey Oak Park
More input needed on Field Center
Is the potential rebuild of the Field Recreation Center controversial? From what I am seeing in letters and online it doesn’t seem to me it is. I say that because controversy involves two sides with legitimate arguments. It seems, that other than the Park Board itself, virtually everyone is against the plans
So why might it possibly happen? Simply because the board has a vision in their head of something they feel is good? Isn’t the point of evaluating park by park to create
something that will serve the neighbors and that they want? If the neighbors are against the plan, why would it be forced on them?
I think the board should have gotten more input before going ahead with the design competition. Even if they did get some input before, now that they see how much opposition there is, they should, as a minimum, wait until after the local elections before proceeding with anything
Joyce Porter Oak Park
Village manager’s raise is shocking Manuscript and cursive, very diversive
Manuscript instruction beg an for me in first grade, and my teacher encouraged our class to express our own ideas in writing. Our teacher held practice periods on letters only as long as necessary, and this put handwriting to work at once. These practice periods helped us learn the different shapes and strokes required.
Sometimes we used oversized pencils, but our teacher thought that ordinary-sized pencils were best, so we abandoned the oversized pencils quite soon. The lined paper we used had one-inch spaces between the lines, and lines of another color were . These lines helped us write both capital and small letters.
Our teacher often wrote model letters on the chalkboard for us to practice, and she let us practice new letter shapes and words on the chalkboard before writing them on
The opportunity to watch our teacher rite was important in learning manuscript riting, because they showed in clear, easy to w strokes just how to write.
Each letter was made with exactly the same es in the same order every time it was ritten, and our teacher often used the same rds to name the strokes for us. For example, I remember our teacher saying, as she made the letter “a” — “around and straight down,” in general, the curves, circles, and straight lines that made up the letters were made from the top down.
We were taught to hold the chalk or pencil in a way that fit our hand normally. No two children can hold a pencil or chalk exactly alike because some children have hands that are long, like mine, while other children have short, fat hands.
For manuscript writing the paper is placed vertically, and for cursive writing the paper is placed slanting to the left for right-handed people and to the right for left-handed people We were told to sit up straight and squarely in our desks with both feet flat on the floor as we wrote Our class did not make the shift from manuscript writing to cursive writing until we had an above-average mastery of manuscript writing. The change for the class came in the third grade, and the shift was made gradually over a six-week period.
Lear ning cursive writing consisted of practicing individual letters, and each student practiced until he/she could make an exact copy of the letter shown on the chart, the chalkboard, or in the manual we used
In the second half of third grade, we began to write stories and reports, and in this way, we made practical use of our writing skills. As in manuscript writing, our class learned the most about cursive writing by watching our teacher write well.
We watched to see how the paper was moved to give slant to the writing, lear ned which letters were made differently in cursive than in manuscript, learned how to make the joining strokes between letters, and were taught not to raise our pencils or fountain pens from the paper until an entire word was finished.
Just like the older kids in our school, I too learned to dot my i’s and cross my t’s and to write clearly in both manuscript and cursive.
The Oak Pa rk Village Board’s unanimous decision to increase the village manager’s annual salary to $261,500 further highlights the board’s fiscally irresponsible actions. While a 13% salary increase is shocking — especially given that standard raises in the private sector typically range from 3-5% — I am even more concerned by the board’s approval of a company vehicle and a $100,000 personal loan (https:// www.oakpark.com/2025/02/20/oak-park-village-manager-salary-raise).
First, why is a company car being provided to an employee whose primary responsibility is to work in the village office? Company vehicles are typically given to employees who need to travel frequently for work-related duties outside their primary workplace, not for a daily commute. Additionally, the only detail disclosed is that the car is an EV. What is the exact make and model? Is it new or used, and how much did it cost? Taxpayers deserve full trans-
parency on this expense.
Second, how is it justifiable to provide a personal loan to a gover nment employee making over a quarter of a million dollars per year? Are taxpayers now responsible for subsidizing the village manager’s home purchase? What are the terms of this loan? Is the manager paying interest, or is this essentially a handout?
I urge the board to provide concrete data supporting its claim that “the village manager’s contract falls within the median range and demonstrates confidence in his performance.”
Does the board lack basic negotiation skills, preferring to overpay the village manager rather than face the challenge of finding a qualified replacement? Have they simply conceded to unreasonable demands instead of acting in the best interests of the community? Ask yourselves these questions when you vote on April 1.
Stacey Hunt, Oak Park
Ginkgo berries and the election
When we moved to South Kenilworth Avenue in 1983, we were delighted by the young ginkgo tree planted in the fairway in front of our house. After it started to yield stinky ginkgo berries, we understood the responsibilities involved with maintaining these trees in the fall. Since then, the tree has matured, and its harvest grows larger year by year. Since that time, the park commission has planted two more of them on our block. In the fall, students know to walk on the other side of the street, so they won’t track the vomitous smell into Gwendolyn Brooks.
Of course, I bring this up because of the ill-advised decision by village trustees to cease picking up leaves and mandating that Oak Parkers bag them for pick
up. Our bags are heavier than most because they are also filled with aromatic fruit. However, a third of the leaves and fruit from these three trees fell directly into the street. They are there still, and the mess has been tur ned into a sickening stew that stinks, clogs the street drains, and causes flooding.
As we approach the upcoming election, I will be reading the “vision statements” of those standing for village trustee. For my part, and I wager I am not alone, my vision will not go beyond the stink on the other side of my curb, the ever-increasing real estate tax, and the failure of village government to clean the streets in front of my house
Keep your dogs on a leash
I have a German Shepherd dog, Lupo. He is over 95 pounds of muscle and teeth, he is black and impressive. But with humans he is a pussycat, he loves all of us people, big and small, and he especially loves small children, with whom he plays at the park.
He is an excellent dog. Unfortunately, he is an alpha dog and hates all the creatures of his species. Being so powerful and with such long, sharp teeth, we had him trained by a professional trainer. The trainer defined Lupo as an apex dog, i.e. an alpha dog on steroids, and told us to keep him away from other dogs — for the other dogs’ sake, because Lupo will win.
He walks beautifully on a leash, he obeys the commands, and when we take him out for a walk, always on a leash, we make him sit down anytime we see a resident walking his own dog. Lupo obeys and is al-
lowed to get up only after the other dog is gone. This morning our dog was walking peacefully when we spotted a resident with an unleashed dog. The little pup was clearly friendly and came running toward Lupo, who was sitting down as ordered. This little dog essentially placed his nose close to Lupo’s nose, I am certain as a sign of friendship and an invitation to play. Lupo opened his mouth and was ready to bite when we pulled him back. It all happened very quickly, and it was very close.
Now I ask, do dog owners know that animals like Lupo exist? They are wonderful dogs and companions, they are affectionate and loyal, but they hate other dogs! So, keep your dogs on a leash when you take them out!
Giuseppina Nucifora, A dog-owner of Riv er Forest
Stephen Kelley, Oak Park
Jack Swanson, 96 OPRF High School superintendent
Dr. John C. (Jack) Swanson, 96, a resident of Windsor Park in Carol Stream, died on Feb. 21, 2025. Born in Rockford on April 5, 1928, to Fred R. and Elsie M. Swanson, he was a 1949 graduate of Wheaton Colle ge and earned a PhD in school ad ministration at Northwestern University. He served as teacher, coach and dean at Wheaton Academy, 1952-1957 and as counselor and assistant principal at Rockford East High School from 1957-1961. He was appointed principal of Guilford High School in Rockford where he served until 1969, was assistant superintendent in the Deerfield/Highland Park High School District for five years and was superintendent at Oak Park and River Forest High School until his retirement in 1987. During his retirement years, he served as interim superintendent in River Forest District 90 and Rockford school districts; worked in various positions at Circle Urban Ministries, Lawndale Community Development Corporation, and Lawndale Christian Health Center on Chicago’s West Side; devoted a year to helping organize a mission, along with his wife Ellie, in a squatter area of Metro Manila, Philippines; and worked with World Relief to resettle refug ees, teaching them to drive and to prepare for their citizenship examination.
In 2005, he was honored with the Alumnus of the Year for Distinguished Service to Society Award, by the Wheaton Colle ge Alumni Association.
He married E. Eleanor (Ellie) McKnight, his colle ge sweetheart, in 1950 and later served for many years as her care giver as she declined with Alzheimer’s Disease. Following her death in 2004, he mar ried Zondra Lindblade in 2007. T hey enjoyed 15 years of mar riage before her death. He served for over 30 years on the board and as an officer of John Stott Ministries (now Langham Par tnership USA), a ministry he was passionate about. He has been an active member of Immanuel Presbyterian in Warrenville, Glen Ellyn Co venant, River Forest Presbyterian, and Rockford Evangelical Free churches. After bringing
Young Life to Rockford, he was a leader of Young Life clubs at Rockford East and Guilford high schools, while working at the schools. He was also a member of the Oak Park Rotary Club, professional education associations, and a board member of Covenant Retirement Communities and T rinity and Wheaton colle ges. He loved golf, and had a hole-in-one at the age of 90. He loved unconditionally, all people, and worked for justice and peace, seeking to bring “Christ and His Kingdom” to his communities.
Jack Swanson was preceded in death by his wife E. Eleanor (McKnight) Swanson in 2004; his wife Zondra (Lindblade) Swanson in 2022; and his son Daniel in 2016. He is survived by his brother Armour (Beverly) Swanson; his children, Robert (Laurie) Swanson and Kathryn (Ste phen) Soneson; his daughter in law, Angelica Juarez de Swanson; seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 29W260 Batavia Road, Warrenville, IL 60555, on Saturday, March 29 at 11 a.m., preceded by a visitation from 10 till 11 a.m., followed by a luncheon at the church
In lieu of flowers, friends may send memorial gifts to Langham Partnership USA (founded by John Stott), PO Box 189, Cave Creek, AZ 85327-9932 or the Benevolent Care Fund at Windsor Park
Colette
Berggren, 82
River Forest resident
Jean Bojes, 62
Assistant professor of music at Concordia
Jean Harrison Bojes, 62, of Buf f alo Grove, died on Feb. 19, 2025. Bor on Oct. 28, 1962 in Oak Park to James and Edith (nee Hansen) Harrison Sr., she marrie Allen J. Bojes in Oak Park on Ma 28, 2006.
A for mer assistant professor of Music at Concordia University Chicago, her journey included 20 years of her enriching experience at Concordia, where she honed her skills, embraced her love of music, and built lifelong connections. Throughout her time there, she had the privileg e of teaching and mentoring hundreds of students, shaping the next g eneration of music teachers with her knowledge, patience, and dedication. She shared her gift of music on many stages, both domestic and international. T hese experiences broadened her horizons, deepened her cultural appreciation, and solidified her commitment to using music as a universal language of unity and love. She very much enjoyed giving the commentary for the music at the U-Band concerts at Concordia, conducted by Rich Fischer her good friend and collea gue.
“Jean filled my life with happiness, joy, and a loving smile that I will never forg et,” said her husband, Allen. She is gone too soon but will be in my hear t forever.”
Jackie G ood, 85
Animal lover, human helper
Jacqueline A. Good, 85, of Oak Park, died peaceully in her sleep on Feb. 23, 2025. Bor n on Oct. 23, 1939, in Evergreen Park, to Clarence A. Johnson and Mildred (née Oberg) Jackie was the ultimate advocate of justice for all: children, animals, charity, the underrepresented and “the underdogs.”
She met her devoted husband, Ray A. Good III, while working at Arthur Andersen and Co. They lived on the 800 block of South Kenilworth Ave. for 50 years before transitioning to the American House Senior Living Center on Madison Street in 2023.
A spiritual and helpful person, she volunteered at the PADS shelter (now Housing Forward), the Night Ministry Bus, tutoring inmates at Cook County Jail, and working as a teacher’s aide in the District 97 schools Her passions were music, nature, nutrition, exercise and animal advocacy She joined the choir at every church she attended and sang with the Oak Park Symphony Chorus in Europe. She felt music on such a deep level that she would conduct any symphony she heard in her living room and dance to a pop song anywhere with joyful abandon. Her happiest place was a summer vacation in southwestern Michigan where she had been going since the 1940s. She held a special spot for all animals in the world and cared for her many dogs and grand-dogs throughout her life.
Colette Berggren, 82, of River Forest, died on Feb. 23, 2025. Born on May 26, 1942, she was the daughter of the late Catherine and Edward; the sister of Kathleen Collins; the aunt of Gerard (Marisa Leonardi), Gerese Collins, and Edward (Timothy Brynda); the great-aunt of Christopher and Kiera; and the friend of Sylvia and Marylynn.
Visitation will take place on Thursday, March 6, at St. Vincent Ferrer Church from 9 a.m. until time of Mass at 10 a.m. Interment at All Saints Cemetery
In additions to her husband, Jean was the sister of James “Jay” (Sally) Harrison Jr. and Heather (Martin) Pangelinan; the aunt of Joe and Sarah Chiesa; the greataunt of Samantha and Chloe; and the sister-in-law of Gary (Iza Plucinska) Bojes. She was preceded in death by her parents, James and Edith Har rison.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, March 22, starting at 10 a.m. until the service at 1 p.m. at Kolssak Funeral Home, 189 S. Milwaukee Ave. (2 blocks south of Dundee Road) in Wheeling. Inur nment will be private.
In lieu of flowers, donations to the American Cancer Society at https://donate.cancer.org in Jean’s memory would be greatly appreciated
She raised her sons, Timothy (Elias Madias) and Daniel (Kelly), teaching empathy and determination. She was devoted to her grandchildren, Colin and Amelia, who called her their favorite person. She loved her sister, Sandra Starck, and her nephews, John (Heidi) and Bob
The family would especially like to thank the staff at The American House for their care of Jackie while she experienced Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Visitation was held on Feb. 28 at Zimmerman-Harnett Funeral Home 7319 Madison St. in Forest Park, with a memorial service on March 1 at United in Faith Lutheran Church
In lieu of flowers, please donate to a charity of your choice that helps an underdog, as she would have done.
SPORTS
Huskies’ Keyes locks down 7th all-state swim medal
Friars’ four all-state e orts with one senior set stage for strong 2026
By BILL STONE Contributing Reporter
For senior Will Keyes, his Oak Park and River Forest High School boys swimming days truly came down to one race at the state meet Saturday. Keyes, who usually competes in the maximum four events, only qualified for the finals of the 200-yard freestyle at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont.
“It was a bit weird. Normally I have the mindset of maintaining that level of fitness and ability throughout the meet,” he said. “It is kind of nice just having my mind set on one thing. I could dial in and really focus on the little things about that race.”
Keyes went out finishing 12th in a seasonbest 1:41.60 to conclude one of the most successful resumes in OPRF history.
Fenwick, meanwhile, had four honorable mention all-state performances. Junior Jack Posluszny was 12th in the 100 breast stroke (56.74) and junior Patrick Rhatigan was 15th in the 200 free (1:42.71) and 500 free (4:42.62). The 200 medley relay of freshman Hugo Gibson, Posluszny, junior Michael Neumann and senior Thomas Heit was 14th (1:34.57).
The Friars finished 28th (15 points). Heit was the only senior among their seven state competitors.
“We’re ready to come back next year with
more fight,” Posluszny said. “We’ve worked hard, we have more work to do, and we can get better next year.”
Top-eight times from Friday’s preliminaries competed for the state championship and earned all-state. Ninth through 16th prelim times raced for ninth and honorable mention all-state honors.
Keyes collected seven medals over the past three state meets to share the Huskies’ seventh highest overall total. His other individual medal was 15th in the 200 free in 2024 (1:40.95).
“Swimming is such a big part of my life. I will continue swimming in some aspect,” said Keyes, who does not plan to compete collegiately. “There are some awesome traditions we do every year as a team and they’re always really special to me. That’s what sports is all about, meeting the guys you’re always with and becoming teammates but also just friends.”
Keyes reached the championship finals once with the fifth-place 200 free relay in 2022. Saturday’s races were expanded from 12 to 16 finalists last season.
“He’ll definitely go down as one of our most decorated swimmers,” OPRF coach Clyde Lundgren said. “For him to go three years [to state], come home with medals every time is a huge accomplishment.”
Under first-year head coach Justin Jornd, the Friars are on track for even greater things next season.
“We had a great [sectional], just blew all of our best times out of the water,” Jornd said. “Coming into the state meet, I knew
OPRF’s Will Keyes competes in the 200 Yard Freestyle during the IHSA Boys Swimming State Championship, March 1, in Westmont
we were a little tired but the boys finished strong. The way they showed up [both days], it was a great meet.”
At the Fenwick Sectional, Posluszny broke the Fenwick pool record for the 100 breast (59.57) and is on the verge of the 1994 school record. Posluszny swam 56.59 Friday.
“I think we did well. I thought my [100 breast] performance was great. I gave it my all and it’s a reflection of all the work I’ve done this year,” he said. “On days that you just don’t want to keep going, you’ve just got to keep pushing and working hard.”
In his finals, Rhatigan swam No. 2 season times to his best ones Friday (1:42.50 and 4:39.31).
“My 200 free was strong [Saturday]. I was able to pace it pretty well,” Rhatigan said.
“My 500 free, I died a little bit at the end just because it’s been a long weekend for everybody.”
Rhatigan said he logs between 7,000 and 8,000 yards training re gularly with his club team at FMC.
“I didn’t really have that back half I was hoping for [in the 500 free],” Rhatigan said. “I was talking with [Jornd]. We’re going to train a little more aerobically and make sure I have that back end on the last day.”
In prelims, Fenwick’s 400 free relay of Heit, Neumann, Posluszny and Rhatigan was 19th (3:10.67). OPRF’s Keyes was 21st (46.62) and Heit tied for 22nd (46.66) in the 100 free. The Huskies’ 200 free relay (23rd, 1:27.37) had four time drops from Keyes, seniors Lucas Puntillo and Andrew Harmon and sophomore Alfonso Cides.
“After the race, [Harmon said] you can’t ask for any more than that,” Lundgren said. “To come here, swim your best time at the end of the season, it’s a great way to go out.”
Fenwick boys basketball rolls to 3A regional title
OPRF eliminated in 4A tournament
By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter
Entering the start of the IHSA Class 3A state tournament, the Fenwick boys basketball team wanted to reestablish its defensive identity, which had declined down the stretch of the re gular season. Two games into the postseason, that is exactly what the Friars have done, allowing just 29
points combined.
“Coach [David Fergerson] has been stressing to go back to our old defense from the beginning of the season,” Fenwick guard Ty Macariola said after Fenwick’s 50-20 victory over Prosser in the Fenwick Re gional final, Feb. 28. “Through
the end of the season, we felt we lagged a little bit, so during practice we’ve been focusing on helping out and boxing out.”
Fenwick (22-11) held Prosser to just five baskets the entire g ame enroute to win-
See BASKETBALL on page 33
STEVE JOHNSTON
OPRF wrestling ousted by Joliet Catholic in team state quarters
Loss ends a terri c season for Huskies
By MELVIN TATE Contributing Reporter
The Oak Park and River Forest High School boys wrestling team entered its IHSA Class 3A dual-team quarterfinal in Bloomington against Joliet Catholic Academy Friday with momentum after rallying to defeat St Charles East 36-33 at the Schaumburg sectional Feb. 25, with David Ogunsanya’s pinfall victory at 150 pounds in the penultimate match sealing things. While things began well for the Huskies, the Hilltoppers won the final two matches to secure a 38-29 victory, which ended OPRF’s season.
“Everybody showed up and competed hard,” said OPRF coach Paul Collins. “It’s just unfortunate that we didn’t get all the things we needed to go our way. We weren’ t able to score as many bonus points as we’d hoped, and couldn’t minimize [JCA’s] damage as well.”
The dual started at 138 pounds, and OPRF won three of the first four matches. Zev Koransky defeated Dawson Mack 3-0; Joseph Knackstedt notched a major decision (12-3) over Elias Gonzalez at 144; and at 157, Ogun-
Continued from previous pa ge
ning its fifth consecutive re gional title. Fergerson feels the F riars can still reach another level as the playof fs progress
“I don’t know if that’s enough to get us to Champaign [state finals site], where we want to go,” he said. “We’re still a work in progress, but we were much better this week.”
Against Prosser, Jake Thies led Fenwick with eight points. Jack O’Leary had seven points and six rebounds, while Kam Hogan and Conrad Sperry added six points apiece
“That’s really important to have a balanced attack,” Fergerson said. “That way, you can’ t just focus on one gu y.”
In the re gional semifinal versus Golder, Feb. 26, Deonte Meeks poured in a careerhigh 43 points in the F riars’ 92-9 victory. T he quality of competition greatly increases in the sectionals, so Fergerson knows it’s important for his team to keep
sanya pinned Vince Tindal in 5:29, giving the Huskies a 13-6 lead
“Zev, Joe, and David all bumped up in weight [against JCA],” Collins said. “W hadn’t done much of that this season, especially with those guys, but when their names were called, they answered. It was what our team needed.”
But JCA ran off three consecutive victories — two via fall as well as a technical f victory — to take a 23-13 advantage. OPRF countered with three straight wins of thei own to reclaim the lead. At 215, Eric Harris got a major decision (15-4); at 285, Terrenc Garner got a 4-2 victory; and at 106, MJ Rundell notched a fall at 1:04.
After JCA retook the lead with a victory via fall at 113, Jamiel Castleberry tied the dual up for the Huskies at 29-29 with a 7-1 victory at 120. But the Hilltoppers received a major decision from Matthew Laird at 126 over Gabe Rojas to retake the lead, then clinched the dual in the finale at 132 when Jason Hampton scored a technical fall over Isaiah Gibson.
While disappointed about the loss, Collins feels it didn’t detract from a successful season for OPRF.
“Two years ago, we had one state qualifier,” he said. “We weren’t competing for conference or anything. We’ve been building toward getting things back to where they were: having multiple state qualifiers and placers,
improving.
“Every level as you move closer [to the finals], you’ve got to be better,” he said. “We’ve got to be much better the next g ame than we were tonight.”
Macariola, honored in a pre-game ceremony for surpassing 1,000 career points, said playing to g ether and trusting each other will be the keys to winning this week’s Little Village Sectional. He also took time to briefly acknowledge his achievement while kee ping his eyes on the big picture.
“It’s super-cool. I couldn’ t have done it without my teammates,” Macariola said. “Every single day, we come to practice and give 100 percent. But I’m really more focused on the sectional.”
Fenwick, the top seed at Little Village, faced Payton Prep in a semifinal, March 4, after deadline. T he winner meets Little Village or St. Patrick for the sectional title, March 7.
OPRF Forest junior David Ogunsanya (top) takes command of his 157-pound match against Joliet Catholic’s Vince Tindal at the IHSA Class 3A dual-team state quarter nals in Bloomington, Feb. 28. Ogunsanya notched the victory with a fall at 5:29.
winning conference and regional titles, and competing for trophies. I don’t think many outside the program knew what we had this year, but we did, and we knew we could compete with anyone in the state.”
Collins thanked his seniors, including stalwarts Garner, Harris, Knackstedt, AJ Noyes, and Gabe Rojas, for their help in revitalizing the Huskies
“Whether they were starters or not, they were committed to the team,” he said. “No one can question their loyalty; they came in every day to push each other. It’s a great group.”
Although OPRF loses 15 wrestlers to gradu-
OPRF
Oak Park and River Forest (10-17) dug a deep early hole in its 4A regional semifinal at Highland Park, Feb. 26, and couldn’t recover in a season-ending 57-41 defeat.
“We didn’t come out aggressive and let their guard [Simon Moschin, game-high 32 points] have his way with us,” said OPRF coach Phil Gary. “We came out more aggressive in the second half, but you’ve got to play almost flawless basketball when you dig yourself a hole.”
In their high school finales, OPRF seniors Alex Gossett and Alex Vincent, both West Suburban Silver All-Conference members, had solid efforts. Vincent recorded his 18th double-double of the season with 16 points and 13 rebounds, while Gossett added 14 points.
“I’m gonna miss those guys,” Gary said. “They’re not only good players, they’re also good kids with great parents, and that’s all you can ask for as a coach. They gave every-
ation, the cupboard is far from bare. The Huskies are scheduled to return four of its seven individual state qualifiers: sophomores Rundell (Class 3A champion at 106) and Castleberry (5th at 120), and juniors Koransky and Ogunsanya. Sophomores Lucas Albrecht, Alex Cohen, Zach Michaud, and Liam Nikolakakis as well as juniors Gibson, Jeremiah Hernandez, and Pierre Nelson were solid contributors who look to make a bigger impact next year
“The train will keep on rolling,” Collins said. “This was a fun season to coach. We’re going to take time to reflect on the season we had, then start getting ready for next year.”
thing to the program.”
Moreover, Gossett and Vincent achieved in the classroom as both made the WSC-All Academic Team along with six other Huskies: seniors Finn Hackett, Mateo Heidkamp-Pimentel, Andre Stanton, John Summers, Matt Winkelhake, and Andrew Zhou.
“Our record wasn’t the best, but those kids worked their butt off, both on and off the floor,” Gary said. “We have five guys with grade-point averages over 4.0, which is incredible.”
OPRF is scheduled to return nine players next season, including sophomore AJ Enyia and juniors Jerome Delaney, Matthew Halper, Logan Johnson, Acoya King, Johnny Nelson, and Cameron Woods, all of whom either started or saw significant playing time
“We’ve got some nice core pieces coming back,” Gary said. “Our record is what it is, but we’re going to keep working as a staff to get these guys to work extremely hard and be prepared for next year.”
COURTESY OF SAMANTHA SMA RT
PUBLIC NOTICE
ADVERTISEMENT OF BIDDING
Request for bids for the “Skate Shop and Automatic Door Improvement” Project at the Ridgeland Common Recreation Center, 415 W. Lake St. Oak Park Il. 60302
Owner: Park District of Oak Park 218 Madison St, Oak Park, IL 60302
The Park District of Oak Park will accept sealed bids for the “Skate Shop and Automatic Door Improvement Project” located at the Ridgeland Common Recreation Complex, 415 Lake St. Oak Park
The project generally consists of specified demolition in a customer service area (Skate Shop), featuring electric, carpentry, masonry and other trade work. Removal and replacement of a service counter in a new location, replacement of service windows, replacement of rubber flooring, replacement of existing manual doors with and automatic sliding ADA door. The Park District of Oak Park will receive individual sealed Bids until 10:00 a.m. (Central time) on Thursday, March 27th, 2025, at 218 Madison St., Oak Park, IL. The bidding documents and requirements will be available on the Demand Star website as of 9am, Thursday, March 6th, 2025. An optional pre-bid walk-thru is scheduled for 9am, March 13th, 2025, at Ridgeland Common Recreation Complex, 415 Lake St. Oak Park, Il. 60302. Bid bonds will be required by bidding contractors. Copies of the bidding specifications available via the Demand Star website at: https://www.demandstar.com/ app/buyers/bids/492955/details For additional information, contact Bill Hamilton at bill.hamilton@pdop.org or 708-725-2052. Only bids prepared in compliance with the bidding documents will be considered. Project must adhere to the Prevailing Wage Act of 2024. The Park District of Oak Park encourages minority and women owned business firms to submit bids for this project.
Park District of Oak Park
By: Sandy Lentz, Secretary Park District of Oak Park 218 Madison St. Oak Park, IL 60302
Published in Wednesday
LEGAL NOTICE
The Village of Oak Park will receive sealed bids from qualified contractors at the Public Works Center, 201 South Boulevard, Oak Park, Illinois 60302 Monday through Friday, 7�30 a.m. to 3�00 p.m. local time until 3�00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 21st, 2025 for the following: Village of Oak Park 2025 Village Hall and Marion Street Fountain Maintenance Bid Number: 25�118
Bid documents may be obtained from the Village’s website at http://www.oak-park.us/ bid. For questions, please call Public Works at �708� 358�5700 during the above hours.
Published in Wednesday Journal March 5, 2025
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION
WILMINGTON SAVINGS FUND SOCIETY, FSB, NOT IN ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUT SOLEY IN ITS CAPACITY AS OWNER TRUSTEE FOR OCWEN LOAN ACQUISTION TRUST 2023-HB1 Plaintiff, -v.-
UNKNOWN HEIRS AND DEVISEES OF RICKY WILSON, DECEASED, UNKNOWN CLAIMANTS AND LIENHOLDERS AGAINST THE ESTATE OF RICKY WILSON, DECEASED, UNKNOWN CLAIMANTS AND LIENHOLDERS AGAINST THE UNKNOWN HEIRS AND DEVISEES OF RICKY WILSON, DECEASED, UNKNOWN HEIRS AND DEVISEES OF ALLIE MAE WILSON AKA
ALLIE M. WILSON, DECEASED, UNKNOWN CLAIMANTS AND LIENHOLDERS AGAINST THE ESTATE OF ALLIE MAE WILSON AKA
ALLIE M. WILSON, DECEASED, UNKNOWN CLAIMANTS AND LIENHOLDERS AGAINST THE UNKNOWN HEIRS AND DEVISEES OF ALLIE MAE WILSON AKA ALLIE M. WILSON, DECEASED, BONNIE
M. WILSON, JOHN LYDON, AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF RICKY WILSON, DECEASED, WIL-
Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/18.5(g-1).IF YOU ARE THE MORTGAGOR (HOMEOWNER), YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN IN POSSESSION FOR 30 DAYS AFTER ENTRY OF AN ORDER OF POSSESSION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 15-1701(C) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW.
Upon payment in full of the amount bid, the purchaser will receive a Certificate of Sale that will entitle the purchaser to a deed to the real estate after confirmation of the sale.
The property will NOT be open for inspection and plaintiff makes no representation as to the condition of the property. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information. If this property is a condominium unit, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale, other than a mortgagee, shall pay the assessments and the legal fees required by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/9(g)(1) and (g) (4). If this property is a condominium unit which is part of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/18.5(g-1).
IF YOU ARE THE MORTGAGOR (HOMEOWNER), YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN IN POSSESSION FOR 30 DAYS AFTER ENTRY OF AN ORDER OF POSSESSION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 15-1701(C) OF THE ILLINOIS MORTGAGE FORECLOSURE LAW.
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION FIRST SAVINGS BANK Plaintiff, -v.DDI HOLDINGS LLC, AN ILLINOIS LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY; TANPHI WELLNESS INC., AN ILLINOIS CORPORATION; SPINOX1 INC., AN ILLINOIS CORPORATION; DONALD OLIPHANT; UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS
Defendants 2023 CH 03962 6201 - 6209 WEST NORTH AVE OAK PARK, IL 60302
NOTICE OF SALE PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Order of Default, Default Judgment, Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale, and Appointing Selling Officer entered in the above cause on February 22, 2024, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on March 28, 2025, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker, 1st Floor Suite 35R, Chicago, IL, 60606, sell at a public sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate:
You will need a photo identification issued by a government agency (driver’s license, passport, etc.) in order to gain entry into our building and the foreclosure sale room in Cook County and the same identification for sales held at other county venues where The Judicial Sales Corporation conducts foreclosure sales.
For information, contact Paulina Garga-Chmiel, DYKEMA GOSSETT PLLC Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 10 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE, SUITE 2300, CHICAGO, IL, 60606 (312) 876-1700. THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236-SALE
You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc. com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.
Paulina Garga-Chmiel DYKEMA GOSSETT PLLC 10 SOUTH WACKER DRIVE, SUITE 2300 CHICAGO IL, 60606 312-876-1700
E-Mail: pgarga@dykema.com Attorney Code. 42297 Case Number: 2023 CH 03962 TJSC#: 45-479 I3261453
common interest community, the purchaser of the unit other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by subsection (g-1) of Section 18.5 of the Condominium Property Act. Sale terms: At sale, the bidder must have 10% down by certified funds, balance within 24 hours, by certified funds. No refunds. The property will NOT be open for inspection. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information.
For information call Sales Department at Plaintiff’s Attorney, Diaz Anselmo & Associates P.A., 1771 West Diehl Road, Suite 120, Naperville, IL 60563. (630) 453-6960. 1496-197806
INTERCOUNTY JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION intercountyjudicialsales.com I3261492
LIAM P. BUTCHER, AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF ALLIE MAE WILSON AKA ALLIE M. WILSON, DECEASED Defendants
Commonly known as 6201 - 6209 WEST NORTH AVE, OAK PARK, IL 60302
18 CH 07072
643 S. 19TH AVENUE MAYWOOD, IL 60153
NOTICE OF SALE
You will need a photo identification issued by a government agency (driver’s license, passport, etc.) in order to gain entry into our building and the foreclosure sale room in Cook County and the same identification for sales held at other county venues where The Judicial Sales Corporation conducts foreclosure sales.
Property Index No. 16-05-102032-0000
For information, contact HEAVNER, BEYERS & MIHLAR, LLC Plaintiff’s Attorneys, 601 E. William St., DECATUR, IL, 62523 (217) 422-1719. Please refer to file number 323264.
THE JUDICIAL SALES CORPORATION
One South Wacker Drive, 24th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606-4650 (312) 236-SALE
PUBLIC NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure and Sale entered in the above cause on December 17, 2024, an agent for The Judicial Sales Corporation, will at 10:30 AM on March 18, 2025, at The Judicial Sales Corporation, One South Wacker, 1st Floor Suite 35R, Chicago, IL, 60606, sell at a public in-person sale to the highest bidder, as set forth below, the following described real estate: Commonly known as 643 S. 19TH AVENUE, MAYWOOD, IL 60153
Property Index No. 15-10-322017-0000
The real estate is improved with a single family residence.
The judgment amount was $205,161.17.
Sale terms: 25% down of the highest bid by certified funds at the close of the sale payable to The Judicial Sales Corporation. No third party checks will be accepted. The balance, in certified funds/or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours.
You can also visit The Judicial Sales Corporation at www.tjsc. com for a 7 day status report of pending sales.
HEAVNER, BEYERS & MIHLAR, LLC 601 E. William St. DECATUR IL, 62523 217-422-1719
Fax #: 217-422-1754
E-Mail: CookPleadings@hsbattys. com
Attorney File No. 323264
Attorney Code. 40387
Case Number: 18 CH 07072
TJSC#: 44-3268
The subject property is subject to general real estate taxes, special assessments, or special taxes levied against said real estate and is offered for sale without any representation as to quality or quantity of title and without recourse to Plaintiff and in “AS IS” condition. The sale is further subject to confirmation by the court.
NOTE: Pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you are advised that Plaintiff’s attorney is deemed to be a debt collector attempting to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose.
Case # 18 CH 07072 I3260849
The real estate is one-story commercial building. The judgment amount was $2,667,110.06. Sale terms: 25% down of the highest bid by certified funds at the close of the sale payable to The Judicial Sales Corporation. No third party checks will be accepted. The balance, in certified funds/or wire transfer, is due within twenty-four (24) hours. The subject property is subject to general real estate taxes, special assessments, or special taxes levied against said real estate and is offered for sale without any representation as to quality or quantity of title and without recourse to Plaintiff and in “AS IS” condition. The sale is further subject to confirmation by the court.Upon payment in full of the amount bid, the purchaser will receive a Certificate of Sale that will entitle the purchaser to a deed to the real estate after confirmation of the sale. The property will NOT be open for inspection and plaintiff makes no representation as to the condition of the property. Prospective bidders are admonished to check the court file to verify all information. If this property is a condominium unit, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale, other than a mortgagee, shall pay the assessments and the legal fees required by The Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605/9(g)(1) and (g) (4). If this property is a condominium unit which is part of a common interest community, the purchaser of the unit at the foreclosure sale other than a mortgagee shall pay the assessments required by The
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS COUNTY DEPARTMENT - CHANCERY DIVISION US BANK TRUST NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, NOT IN ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUT SOLELY AS OWNER TRUSTEE FOR VRMTG ASSET TRUST Plaintiff vs. UNKNOWN HEIRS AND LEGATEES OF ROSIE L. SIMPSON; UNKNOWN HEIRS AND LEGATEES OF ERNEST ROGER BRYANT; DENISE LASHONE COLLINS; ERSKINE LATRELL RICKS; KENOSHA DEANNA RICKS; DENOTA C. RICKS AKA DEONTE C. RICKS; REGGIE L. RICKS AKA REGGIE RICKS; ROSIE RICKS AKA ROSE RICKS; ANDREA LYNETTE COLLINS; AMIR MOHABBAT AS SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE FOR ROSIE L. SIMPSON; ERNEST R. RICKS; FIFTH THIRD BANK, N.A. S/I/I FIFTH THIRD BANK; RAYMOND E. RICKS; LATASHA D. RICKS; EARNESTINE RICKS; KENTON K. RICKS; RAQKOWN D. RICKS; DEMARCUS M. COLLINS; SHANNON RICKS; CORNELIUS RICKS; UNKNOWN OWNERS AND NON-RECORD CLAIMANTS; Defendant 24 CH 393 CALENDAR 62
NOTICE OF SALE
PUBLIC NOTICE is hereby given that pursuant to a Judgment of Foreclosure entered in the above entitled cause Intercounty Judicial Sales Corporation will on April 8, 2025, at the hour 11:00 a.m., Intercounty’s office, 120 West Madison Street, Suite 718A, Chicago, IL 60602, sell to the highest bidder for cash, the following described mortgaged real estate: P.I.N. 15-10-319-012-0000. Commonly known as 602 S. 21st Ave., Maywood, IL 60153. The real estate is: single family residence. If the subject mortgaged real estate is a unit of a
Submit events and see full calendar at oakpark.com/events/
2025 VILLAGE OF OAK PARK
CANDIDATES FORUM
Join the Business and Civic Council of Oak Park for an open forum featuring all candidates for Oak Park Village Trustee and President. This is your chance to hear directly from the candidates on key issues shaping our community, including: Affordable Housing - Fiscal Responsibility - Economic Development
Business & Civic Council of Oak Park and the Oak Park River Forest Chamber of Commerce Present Make Your Voice Heard! Submit your questions in advance to Bus.Civ.OP@gmail.com Don't miss this opportunity to engage with local leaders and influence the future of Oak Park!
Friday, March 7th at 7:30 a.m. The Carleton of Oak Park Hotel, 1110 Pleasant, 60302
Scan the QR code to register or visit https://shorturl.at/cBnCl
Spring Performing Guide Arts 2025
April 28, 2025
Symphony Center Choral Spectacular Symphony Center, Chicago 7:30 pm
June 8, 2025
Resplendent Romantics
Concerts on Sundays, 4 pm at Concordia University Chapel, River Forest Students through college admitted free of charge Free parking at 1124 Bonnie Brae Place
Play an instrument?
Email SymphonyOPRF@gmail.com if you'd like to join the orchestra.
Contact us for tickets or more information!
708.218.2648 | theSymphonyOPRF@gmail.com SymphonyOPRF.org
adaptations of instrumental masterpieces by Gillespie, Ellington, Coltrane, and more!
(773) 281-7820
chicagoacappella.org
Additional Performances Mar. 29 – Apr. 6 in Chicago, Evanston, and Naperville
Voices Take Center Stage: Chicago a cappella’s Fresh Take on Jazz
Chicago a cappella (CAC), the city’s premier unaccompanied vocal ensemble, continues its 2024/25 Season with Jazz a cappella—a fresh take on jazz classics through the power of voice. This dynamic program blends beloved vocal standards (My Funny Valentine, Embraceable You) with a cappella adaptations of instrumental jazz masterpieces by Gillespie, Ellington, and Coltrane. Birdland and Satin Doll take on new life alongside a premiere from HerVoice competition winner Devon Gates, honoring jazz’s artistry and legacy.
Curated by CAC’s Artistic Director John William Trotter and Guest Music Director Paul Langford, the concert features innovative arrangements of Sing, Sing, Sing, Every Day I Have the Blues, A Night in Tunisia, and Giant Steps. Gates, an emerging jazz
musician and composer, will attend CAC’s Evanston and Naperville performances on April 5 and 6 for postconcert Q&As.
Her piece is the latest premiere from CAC’s HerVoice Emerging Women Composers Competition, now in its fifth year and currently accepting new submissions through March 15. The program, launched in 2021, provides mentorship and performance opportunities for women choral composers.
The Jazz a cappella concert series comes to Oak Park’s Nineteenth Century Club on March 30 at 3 PM, with additional performances in Chicago, Evanston, and Naperville from March 29 to April 6. Tickets are $38–$48, with student and Pay-What-You-Can pricing available. Visit www.chicagoacappella. org for tickets and more information.
Johann Sebastian Bach
MASS IN B MINOR
March 29, 2025 7 p.m. + March 30, 2025 4 p.m.
Bach Cantata Vespers Chorus and Orchestra in collaboration with Consonance–Chicago Choral Artists
Michael D. Costello, conductor
Katelyn Lee, soprano
Alexandra Kassouf, soprano
Sarah Ponder, mezzo-soprano
Brian Skoog, tenor
Sam Handley, bass-baritone
Presented in concert with intermission.
Pre-concert lecture with Carl Grapentine begins one hour prior to each performance.
Free admission Free parking
No ticket reservations needed
$25 Per person suggested donation
708-366-6900 www.graceriverforest.org
www.bachvespers.org
March 14, 7:30 p.m. in River Forest Leipzig Thomanerchor
The St. Thomas Boys Choir of Leipzig, Germany Thomaskantor Andreas Reize, conducting
Purchase tickets ($25–$55) at www.bachvespers.org or call the Grace Music Office at 708-366-6900.
We strongly urge concertgoers to purchase tickets in advance. We expect this concert to be sold out.
7300 Division Street River Forest, Illinois 708-366-6900 www.graceriverforest.org
March 10, 1:15 pm
March 10, 1:15 pm
CelebratingMusicofWomen
CelebratingMusicofWomen
March 10, 1:15 pm
CelebratingMusicofWomen
Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by WFMT’s Dennis Moore.
March 10, 1:15 pm
CelebratingMusicofWomen
March 10, 1:15 pm
March 10, 1:15 pm
March 10, 1:15 pm
Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by WFMT’s Dennis Moore.
women composers, introduced by WFMT’s Dennis Moore.
March 17, 1:15 pm
CelebratingMusicofWomen
CelebratingMusicofWomen
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by WFMT’s Dennis Moore.
Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by s Dennis Moore.
TheOriginal “A Star is Born”
March 17, 1:15 pm
March 17, 1:15 pm
TheOriginal “A Star is Born”
Celebrating Music of Women Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by WFMT’s Dennis Moore.
March 17, 1:15 pm
Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
March 17, 1:15 pm
Tatyana Stepanova and Sara Su Jones present a concert featuring women composers, introduced by s Dennis Moore.
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
TheOriginal “A Star is Born”
TheOriginal “A Staris Born”
March 17, 1:15 pm
March 24, 1:15 pm
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
The Original “A Star is Born” Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
A Staris Born” Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
March 17, 1:15 pm
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
All programs are open to the public. Building is fully accessible. Donations to help support programs are appreciated.
March 24, 1:15 pm
Chicago’s African-American StudioPhotographers
TheOriginal “A Star is Born”
March 24, 1:15 pm
March 24, 1:15 pm
March 24, 1:15 pm
March 24, 1:15 pm
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
Chicago’s African-American StudioPhotographers
Chicago’s African-American StudioPhotographers
Chicagos African-American StudioPhotographers
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
Chicago’s African-American StudioPhotographers
Kathleen Rooney shares the story of silent film star Colleen Moore, whose fairy castle is in Chicago!
Chicago’s African-American Studio Photographers
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
March 24, 1:15 pm
March 31, 1:15 pm
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
March 31, 1:15 pm
March 31, 1:15 pm
Chicago’s African-American StudioPhotographers
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
March 31, 1:15 pm
March 31, 1:15 pm
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
A three-course lunch is offered at noon. Lunch reservations required by Wednesday prior; contact the office.
The Marginalization of African Beauty through History
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
March 31, 1:15 pm
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
Dr Amy Mooney examines how photographers helped develop a collective racial consciousness.
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrative about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrative about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrative about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrative about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
Karen J Anderson shifts the narra-tive about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
March 31, 1:15 pm
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
TheMarginalizationofAfrican BeautythroughHistory
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our website. Previous programs can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
Programs are livestreamed and can be viewed on our web-site. Previous pro-grams can also be seen on our website: nineteenthcentury.org
178 Forest Ave., Oak Park, IL 60301 708-386-2729 nineteenthcentury.org
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrahistory, and modern media.
178 Forest Ave.,
178 Forest Ave., Oak Park, IL 60301 708-386-2729 nineteenthcentury.org
nineteenthcentury.org for more program details.
Karen J Anderson shifts the narrative about beauty and how African American women are seen in art, history, and modern media.
178 Forest Ave., Oak Park, IL 60301 708-386-2729 nineteenthcentury.org
178 Forest Ave., Oak Park, IL 60301 708-386-2729 nineteenthcentury.org
178 Forest Ave., Oak Park, IL 60301 708-386-2729 nineteenthcentury.org
Spanish Immersion K-12 School
Lessons for Music, Languages, Academic Tutoring, Theater, Voice, Audition Prep, Logic Pro recording and more!
Top Performing Arts School
off registration fee if used before April 15, 2025
