Chicago Tribune - 04.10.2026 — 2026-10-04

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More than 170,000 acres in Midwest national forests, including Shawnee, could be opened to roads, logging and mining under Trump plan

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'WE STAND TO LOSE OUR SOLITUDE'

By Christiana Freitag | FOR THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

F

or 73-year-old Harold “Cricket” Simons, a major appeal of the Shawnee National Forest is what isn’t there.

No motorized vehicles. No traffic passing on most trails. No horns or engines breaking the quiet.

Simons travels through the forest on horseback. The former Bloomington, Illinois, rodeo rider spends much of his retirement

leading the Illinois chapter of the Back Country Horsemen of America, a national organization of horse-riding volunteers who help maintain trails and public lands.

His five horses are accustomed to the sounds of trail work: the occasional chain-saw or falling tree.

But he said his workhorses, like him, prefer silence.

That's at risk as the Trump administration's Department of Agriculture proposed in August to repeal a 2001 federal rule restricting road construction on national forest lands.

"We stand to lose our solitude in our roadless areas," Simons said.

The repeal of the conservation regulation commonly known as the Roadless Rule, would affect nearly 45 million acres of national forests across the country, including about 10,666 acres in Shawnee.

Across the Midwest, more than 170,000 acres of public lands are protected under the Roadless Rule, including portions of Indiana's Hoosier National Forest, Minnesota's Superior and Chippewa national forests and Michigan's Ottawa and Huron-Manistee national forests.

The proposal is drawing concern from horseback riders like Simons and hunters, hikers and other outdoor recreationists, as well as tribal groups with treaty rights across the Great Lakes region. Conservationists worry that numerous threatened and endangered species will be adversely affected.

"There's a lot to lose here, and everybody needs to be made aware of it," said Kelly Thayer, senior policy advocate with the Environmental Law & Policy Center.

The proposed repeal comes as the U.S. Forest Service is also contending with other changes to federal forest management policy, Thayer said,

See ROADLESS on Page A4

ELECTION 2026

U.S. SENATE

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[Long odds for GOP's Tracy] The Republican nominee is facing a big political challenge against Stratton

By Olivia Olander

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Addressing supporters at an evening fundraiser off Lake Decatur in July, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Don Tracy offered one reason he thinks he has a shot in the general election, despite Demo-

crats winning every

statewide contest for

more than a decade.

more than a decade.

“I hear this question up and down the state, ‘Don, who is your opponent?’” Tracy said. “I answer that, and I say, ‘Well, my opponent is the

Tracy

lieutenant governor. Do you know his or her name?" Nobody knows."

But then he pivoted almost immediately.

“Granted, she has more name ID than I do, so far,” Tracy said. “But it’s not that much more.”

Such is the political challenge for Tracy, a candidate for a statewide office with a unique background — a onetime Democrat who became chair of the Illinois Republican Party, a position he later left amid party turmoil. Nonetheless, he has taken up the GOP mantle to make a long-shot Senate bid.

See TRACY on Page A6

INSIDE

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Co-pilot used ax in attack, UAE says

The co-pilot was an Omani national who had been barred from flying on his country's airline. Nation & World, Page B5

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Mayor Brandon Johnson takes a selfie with Jorge Alexis Jaimes, an EMT working on the CARE program, after a press conference announcing the program's expanded availability on Thursday on the Near West Side. ARTHUR MAIORELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

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911 mental health response teams see uptick, CPD help

Chicago police Officer Dantra Daniel, center, and mental health clinician Gabrielle Mitchell, both members of the city's Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement CARE team, prepare their van on July 14, 2022, at the start of their work day. BRIAN CASSELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

debut the next day.

By Alice Yin

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

After a rocky few years, Mayor Brandon Johnson's campaign promise of rolling out a non-police mental health response team is at the center of a new media blitz by his administration.

Johnson has posted recent videos of himself riding in the city's Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement vans and touted a jump in responses since May. Within the next few days, the city also will roll out a second shift into the evening for these roving teams of behavioral health workers and EMTs, a key focus of the freshman mayor's progressive agenda.

“They told us there was no demand,” Johnson said at his City Club of Chicago address on Wednesday. “But calls increased by 51%.”

Left unsaid was the increase still netted a little more than 100 emergency responses from May to August — an amount the program saw in just one month at its height in years past. It followed a nadir of calls earlier this spring, when a Tribune investigation found CARE dispatches slowed to a crawl amid a perfect storm of bureaucratic mishaps and political infighting within the Johnson administration.

The mayor also didn't elaborate on who he was calling out for brushing off the "demand" for CARE, although his ex-health commissioner, Dr. Olusimbo "Simbo" Ige, argued just that for months before being forced out of her job in May. She was replaced by Dr. Garth Walker, Johnson's third head of the Chicago Department of Public Health in this term.

Johnson's deputy mayor of health and human services, Arturo Carrillo, confirmed to the Tribune that, from May to August, CARE responded to 115 emergency calls, with another 72 dispatches via a "non-urgent" email request channel that has a one- to three-day wait.

“Keep in mind this is a brand new entity of government,” the mayor said when asked by a reporter about CARE’s challenges. “I would love for things to be perfect all the time — trust me, my wife would prefer that, too, in our marriage … but it doesn’t have to be perfect all the time in order for it to work.”

City Council Health Committee Chair Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 33rd, whom Johnson appointed to the leadership post, concurred.

“We have faced road-blocks we didn’t anticipate, and at times the process was slowed down,” she said during a Thursday hearing on CARE. Carrillo then briefed aldermen on lessons learned.

Some of Carrillo's main takeaways: CARE must be available citywide, interdepartmental coordination is key and dispatch channels need to properly route calls to the mental health teams. The Johnson administration made the program citywide in May, broadened the age range to 6 to 65 years and expanded the types of crises that qualify for

CARE, Carrillo said. Starting Monday, he added, a second shift will also expand hours of operation from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Not all advocates for mental health response teams think that diagnosis was why there was a bottleneck. Jim Poole, senior policy director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness Chicago, said during the committee meeting that “In Chicago, we see that CARE is not being adequately used and remains largely sidelined.”

“Specialized support like CARE can relieve the burdens on officers and provide better support to the public,” Poole said. “While citywide expansion and covering more hours of the day is important, there are more fundamental issues standing in the way of truly changing how we respond to mental health emergencies.”

One revelation from the hearing: Though Johnson vowed to transition the program away from former Mayor Lori Lightfoot's pilot model — which included a police officer and a fire paramedic, known as the co-responder — cops have stayed involved in some CARE responses.

“CPD has never stopped supporting the CARE team,” Lt. Rhonda Anderson, Chicago police’s Crisis Intervention Team coordinator, told aldermen. “As of yesterday, (my team has) also done 20 — I know this is a nasty word some of you guys don’t like, but 20 co-responses where they’ve kind of planned ahead and gone to calls together because they felt that teamwork would give a better outcome to our residents.”

Anderson added that in August, Chicago police did an 8-hour training for the CARE team on “de-escalation” tactics. But Johnson, in a Friday news conference, dismissed the idea that those “co-responses” contradict his non-police vision for the mental health response teams and said his administration will “learn from all of these exchanges.”

“Listen, it depends on the circumstance, the situation, right?” Johnson said. “The people of Chicago now have care and treatment, and we are moving away from this historic, degraded, inhumane process of trauma. No more in Chicago. Not as long as I’m mayor.”

Progressives have long clamored for mental health professionals to respond to non-violent 911 calls instead of cops, arguing law enforcement is not the best fit for some of these emergencies. Even more conservative types agree police are often asked to do too much in cash-strapped cities where the need for social services is great.

But the transition under Johnson has been bumpy because of interagency clashes. Besides Ige's defiance of his senior leadership in ordering her to staff up CARE, Chicago police removed its portable data terminals from the program's vans last year after CARE fully folded into the Health Department. Before that, CARE vans were frequently unavailable because of insufficient paramedic staffing from the Chicago Fire Department.

Even ahead of Thursday's hearing, dueling public comments from members of Fire Fighters Local 2, which represents CFD paramedics, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents CARE EMTs, hit at the labor tension sparked by the shift: No union wants to give up its jobs to another. That bitterness likely also bogged down the transition.

Johnson this summer promised to return the police terminals after the Tribune reported on the dip in calls after their 2025 removal, as those devices were a critical resource for CARE teams to monitor live emergency calls. Carrillo said at the hearing only two channels are live: The Office of Emergency Management and Communications 911 dispatch, or non-urgent email requests.

Daniel Casey, a technology deputy at the Office of Public Safety Administration, said the city's transition into a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system that will integrate police, fire and EMS channels into one platform is still in progress. But just like under the traditional police terminal system, neither CARE teams nor Chicago Fire Department personnel will receive the most detailed live updates on the police channel.

It's unclear how long this CAD transition will take. The contract was first inked in 2019. An internal memo from Johnson's office to aldermen Sept. 21 said the first phase, known as the “live 911 data simulation period,” would

One thing is certain: Speakers of all political stripes in Thursday's hearing agreed the need for more mental health care in Chicago is acute. Most aldermen on the Health Committee supported CARE's mission despite the implementation hurdles.

In a video the city posted online within the past week featuring a CARE van and workers, the mayor says, "Chicago police officers respond to tens of thousands of mental health-related calls when a specialized response for mental or social distress is what's actually needed."

“Sometimes police are not the right fit for a mental health crisis,” Johnson said. “CARE steps in to make sure you get compassionate, specialized care when you need it most.”

The city's presentation shows OEMC decides the vast majority of potential 911 calls are not applicable to CARE, and the ones that are don't always get a dispatch, however.

In June, out of 2,568 "potentially eligible calls," $93\%$ of them were screened out after going through dispatch, according to OEMC's slide. That left 50 calls, of which CARE responded to 12. Another 17 responses came through the 72-hour email request form.

There was improvement by August, however; out of 64 eligible 911 calls, 35 of them elicited a CARE dispatch. Another 26 such dispatches were in response to email requests, and five were requested by police.

At the hearing, Health Department leadership also promised to restore the public dashboard of CARE responses. The Johnson administration took that dashboard down in 2024, when calls slowed drastically, and has not yet restored it, but a “public dashboard draft” shown during the hearing noted the fluctuation in total volume over the years: 55 in 2021, 535 in 2022, 808 in 2023, 243 in 2024, 728 in 2025 and 178 so far this year.

The mayor's opponents in the 2027 race already are taking shots over the backslide, with Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias launching attack ads last month listing CARE as a broken campaign promise.

But Rodriguez-Sanchez, the City Council's leading champion of the non-police model of CARE, said in her hearing the local movement for more mental health funding known as the “Treatment Not Trauma” campaign preceded this election cycle, and the one before.

"The CARE initiative did not start in a vacuum, nor did it happen overnight. Its roots go back to 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, when a powerful movement emerged across the country demanding that we reimagine public safety," she said. "Let's be honest, we are still going through growing pains ... but as with anything that requires a fundamental shift in systems and culture, perseverance is necessary."

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Chicagoland

PAGE 3 | SECTION A | SUNDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2026 | CHICAGOTRIBUNE.COM

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'We set a new standard'

Northwestern students cheer at kick off of a game against Penn State at the new Ryan Field in Evanston on Friday. CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE PHOTOS

A U.S. flag covers new Ryan Field in Evanston before a game between Northwestern and Penn State on Friday.

100 years reborn,

Ryan Field opens

to wows and

a deafening din

By Shun Graves and Claire Murphy

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

As the sun set over Evanston on Friday, a golden glow emanated from the limestone exterior of Ryan Field, which was mobbed for the first time by the Wildcat faithful.

Inside, a montage of moments from Northwestern University's long path to rebuilding its football stadium played across the video screens. It featured Pat Ryan Sr., the benefactor behind the new stadium, and other Northwestern stalwarts extolling how the “most user-unfriendly” college arena had become the very opposite.

The video closed with two poignant words, especially for a school that's used a temporary lakeside stadium for two years: "Welcome home."

Soon, the lights turned down, and the speakers blasted “Thunderstruck.” A deafening roar, from the standing-room-only student section no less, seized Ryan Field when the football team made its entrance. The Wildcats had, at last, come home to their new home.

The explosive entrance was the culmination of a centurylong journey which began when the former stadium hosted its first game exactly a hundred years prior, on Oct. 2, 1926.

It hadn't always been a smooth one. When the university pitched the new stadium, which it also plans to use as a concert venue, some nearby residents in this leafy northern corner of Evanston revolted.

That rumpus went unmentioned by Friday's montage, of course, but the video did remind fans that Northwestern has weathered tougher challenges before – certainly in the early '80s, when the football team's ignominious winless streak threatened to put Northwestern's future as a Big Ten member in question.

Now, on a most beautiful day in Evanston, those worries were history. The new \$875 million Ryan Field, long hyped to become America's best place to watch football, had opened. And Ryan himself saw the opening as a challenge to all new stadiums to come.

"We set a new standard," Ryan told the Tribune ahead of the game.

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'JOY' FOR EVANSTON?

Demolition of the old Ryan Field began in February 2024. Aiming to make way for a stadium opening in little more than two years, crews soon made the Wildcats' hulking citadel vanish, starting with the rust-ridden structure beneath the bleachers.

The old stadium opened on Oct. 2, 1926, and “the Purple,” as the Tribune called the team, blanked South Dakota. It got its first name, Dyche Stadium, a month later. And it seemed to have an auspicious future, since the university had once dreamed of building Dyche into a massive, triple-deck stadium.

Yet even as built, the stadium rarely reached capacity, a challenge eventually compounded by the foundering product on the gridiron. And Dyche, too, decayed. So in 1995 – which wound up being the Wildcats' watershed Rose Bowl season

— Northwestern started to envision a big renovation.

The touched-up stadium opened in 1997 with a new name: Ryan Field, in honor of the man who had spear-headed the project.

A couple of decades later, however, Ryan Field gamedays often seemed sparse. The age of the place revealed itself in the discolored bleachers where sometimes few people sat. It felt

empty.

Enter Ryan and his wife, Shirley Ryan, once again.

In 2021, the couple donated \$480 million to the university, including money for Ryan Field's redevelopment. The next year, Northwestern revealed its design for a smaller but more comfortable stadium that could also host commercial, non-NU events.

Nearby residents soon became incensed about the prospect of massive concerts that could funnel sound into their backyards. The decision on whether to enable Northwestern's plans came down to Evanston's City Council, which in October 2023 tied at a preliminary vote.

Mayor Daniel Biss broke that tie in favor of the university. Weeks later, the council gave its final approval along similar lines. It also approved a pact with Northwestern, which promised \$150 million in benefits to Evanston residents.

“In politics it is always easier to say no,” Biss said Friday, when he briefly visited the stadium. “And I’m really glad that we didn’t fall prey to that here, because this is a beautiful facility. And I think it’s one that’s going to bring a lot of joy to people across Evanston for a long time.”

Biss, who said he would not stay for the game, hurried toward the exit after he cut the ribbon alongside the Ryan family.

Northwestern's Dave Davis, the longtime liaison between the university and residents, stuck around and mingled with the big names who had gathered there. He insisted that he talks to the neighbors "every day" and that Northwestern's benefits pact will bolster the city.

It's a contention that one neighbor, Matthew Grayson, disputed as he stood, hands on his hips, looking toward the other side of the new stadium. Music echoed from Ryan Field. Many of his neighbors had left their homes Friday to avoid the game, he said.

“It’s an example of how Northwestern does whatever it wants to do,” he said with a pronounced dismay.

Another neighbor stood on Asbury Avenue with a more opportunistic stance. Christian Piekos, a former WLS-Ch. 7 reporter who moved into a home near Ryan Field six months ago, held a cardboard sign hawking gameday parking.

He's excited about the new stadium. He'd gotten one taker for parking thus far. And he planned to attend

the game.

Back on the other side of the stadium, people streamed toward the gates. Mustard's Last Stand, the hot-dog stand right next to Ryan Field, tried to entice some of them with a food cart by the sidewalk.

"I've been worried and nervous," said the stand's co-owner, Lonnie Starkman. "We've been doing this for so long that we know what we're doing. But you never know, you know. It's opening day after two years of not having a game."

It succeeded mightily. "Extremely well," he said, as fans packed into Mustard's small building.

Oh, and Starkman shares his birthday with Ryan Field.

AN 'EGALITARIAN' EXPERIENCE

Next to Mustard's is the parking lot where the longest-tenured Northwestern fans tailgate. Some donned sequin-embroidered purple hats and Willie the Wildcat T-shirts.

They were all excited about the new stadium, marveling at its cornucopia of amenities.

“It’s worth the cost,” Park Ridge resident Darryl Krall said.

Krall said he's been a Northwestern tailgater for the better part of 45 years. He plans to be here for the next 45.

Bob Guth, a class of 1972 graduate and a 44-time season ticket holder, thinks that attending the game is just as much of a “social experience” as it is one to watch semi-decent football.

And surviving the team's 34-game losing streak from 1979 to 1982 was no easy feat, he added with a laugh.

"We've got four or five guys here that I went to school with back in the '70s," he said. "We don't see each other often, so it's more about the renewal of relationships."

There was plenty more food behind the gates. Mustard's now has an outpost inside Ryan Field, too, part of an all-out effort by Northwestern to attract Chicago, Evanston and North Shore restaurants to the new stadium.

One member of what's billed as the “Great Chicago Food Festival” is Frontera, an extension of chef Rick Bayless' restaurants. He runs the original Frontera Grill and the Michelin-starred Topolobampo in Chicago, among others.

Ahead of the game, Bayless reclined in a seat as he took in the new arena's cavernous but comfortable confines. "One of the most stunning stadiums in the world," he said. Especially because of the dining options.

“It’s very egalitarian,” he told the Tribune. “You could come here and enjoy food that is from all of these great chefs in town, and you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg. That, sort of, is the Chicago way. That we’re regular people.”

Much of Frontera's menu was not available, however, since the stand didn't have heat yet. Bayless said he would hand out guacamole and chips instead. "We decided to just be very magnanimous," he added, chuckling.

Construction on the stadium had not been entirely completed by gameday, with a few of the finer details remaining on the to-do list. It was still easy for many fans to marvel at everything the crews had accomplished in the span of two years.

The NFL-style stadium's white canopy hangs over all 35,000 fans (around 12,000 fewer than the old stadium could fit), sitting in actual seats instead of bleachers. Except, that is, for the newly ferocious student section, in which fans physically cannot sit.

Welcome to the Wildcat Wall.

Students must stay standing, ready at any moment to back-kick the metal plates behind them. And as they discovered at a student preview event the week before, under the instructions of hypeman Joe Spivak, the Wildcat Wall can produce a terrifying din, loud enough to confound the foe.

When the lights turned low and “Thunderstruck” began blasting, the Wildcat Wall knew exactly what to do.

'NIGHTS THAT YOU PRAY FOR'

And perhaps they did vex the once-formidable Penn State Nittany Lions.

Northwestern got off to a hot start in the first quarter. First, a field goal. Then a touchdown. The Wildcat Wall erupted into “Go U Northwestern” for the first time.

In the second quarter, Penn State notched its first touchdown, but the Wildcats' ground game quickly clapped back. That didn't faze the Penn State fans in attendance, yet.

“I feel like they have the momentum right now, but eventually it’s going to wear off,” said Keith Landberg, who had traveled from Florida to watch the game. “And Penn State will win.”

And would Ryan Field beat out the Nittany Lions' home? "Not even close." He allowed that the "loudness is there" at the new stadium. But he saw little comparison to Beaver Stadium, whose 100,000-plus capacity makes it one of the largest stadiums of any kind in the world.

This was no Happy Valley. Indeed, because Northwestern finished the first half up 24-7. The Wildcats and the Wildcat Wall were not finished.

“You give them something easy to do like the wall, and they’re all gung-ho for it,” said Sam McLain, a senior at Northwestern, referring to his fellow students. “But I also think making a bunch of people stay standing for the game also really helps that. Northwestern has a bad habit historically of being game-sitters."

McLain is a diehard Wildcat, but in an unorthodox way: He became well-known on campus as the “Highlighter Kid” for wearing neon-colored outfits to basketball games.

But on Friday, he wore a purple-and-white shirt. It was too important an occasion.

Northwestern announced the game had sold out, but many tickets ended up on the resale market. It seemed that some of the upper reaches of the stadium had empty rows.

And in any case, as North-western kept padding its lead, the seats started to empty.

Not so for the Wildcat Wall, which stayed put until the end.

The Wildcats ran up the scoreboard to 34-13. A line of security guards stood below the Wildcat Wall, apparently expecting to hold back any students who wanted to storm the field.

It ended up being the other way around.

When the game finally wrapped, the football players rushed toward the Wildcat Wall, giving high-fives to the students in the front row.

Fireworks exploded over Ryan Field, and a light smoke filled the stadium as the celebration continued.

At the press conference afterward, in the underbelly of the new stadium, coach David Braun spoke, awe-struck, of gratitude for the Ryan family, the student section and countless others.

And of manifesting dreams, “the best dream of my life.”

"I'm telling you right now," Braun said. "Nights like tonight are nights that you pray for."

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LaRue Pine Hills in the Shawnee National Forest on Sept. 21. E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE PHOTOS

A silica mine near the Shawnee National Forest and its Ripple Hollow roadless area on Sept. 21.

Harold "Cricket" Simons and his wife, Vicki Simons, on their property near Eddyville on Sept. 21.

ROADLESS

from Page A1

creating what he described as a “perfect storm” for public lands.

Along with a proposal to eliminate the Roadless Rule, the USDA and Forest Service revised the agency's Travel Management Rule to allow increased access for motor vehicles on national forest lands. This applies to 193 million acres nationwide, including the Shawnee.

Together with staffing cuts and a Trump executive order to boost timber production in national forests by 25%, these actions have raised questions about how the Forest Service will manage its existing roads and trails — much less additional roads that could be built — and who will benefit.

“In order to mine or in order to log a national forest, roads are required,” Thayer said. “So this effort to roll back the Roadless Rule is very much intended to provide access to the timber industry and the mining industry. That’s the big national play here.”

The Forest Service says repealing the Roadless Rule would not immediately authorize roads, logging or mining in the Shawnee's roadless areas.

"The intent to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule is to return to local decision making as part of individual national forest and grassland plans, which include robust public involvement and focus on land management decisions at the right scale," said a U.S. Forest Service spokesperson in a Sept. 25 email to the Tribune.

In Illinois, where relatively few undisturbed forests remain, residents and environmentalists say saving these spaces is urgent.

"They're just unbelievable beauty, and you see things you don't see anywhere else," Simons said. "To cut through them is like a crime, in my opinion."

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A 'FRAGMENTED' FOREST

Glaciers smoothed out most of Illinois millions of years ago, creating fertile, flat farmland. But on the edge of that glaciated area is the Shawnee, where a mixture of distinctly rugged geology and ecosystems converge. Hugging the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, it's home to biological diversity unlike anywhere else in Illinois.

From the limestone bluffs and swamps of Larue Pine Hills to “Snake Road,” where thousands of reptiles and amphibians migrate across the gravel road every spring and fall, the forest contains some of the state’s most distinct landscapes.

"There's more biodiversity in the couple thousand acres of Larue Pine Hills than there is in Smoky Mountain National Park," said Matt Lechner, a retired Shawnee Forest Service employee. "It's

outstanding."

But the Shawnee is not one continuous block of public land. The nearly 289,000-acre forest is interspersed with private property, farms, communities and roads, creating a patchwork of public and private lands across southern Illinois.

That makes the remaining relatively intact tracts especially important to preserve, according to conservation groups, particularly in a state like Illinois that has lost much of its native forests.

"At one point, forests covered 40% of Illinois' landscape. And today that number is about 14%," said Amanda Pankau, director of energy and community resiliency at Prairie Rivers Network.

“We don’t have very many remaining, and what we do have is highly fragmented,” she said. “It’s very important that we have very few of these contiguous tracts left, that they are protected.”

The Roadless Rule was adopted in 2001 after years of public debate over how much of the country's remaining undeveloped national forest land should be protected from roads and commercial development.

Today, the rule covers tens of millions of acres of National Forest System land.

The Shawnee's roadless areas are scattered across that landscape. The six areas

— Bay Creek, Burden Falls, Burke Branch, Clear Springs, Eagle Creek and Ripple Hollow — cover more than 10,000 acres.

They are also part of a larger habitat supporting wildlife, wetlands, waterways and other ecological resources, including endangered species like the Indiana bat and state-threatened species like the timber rattle-snake.

In its announcement of the repeal proposal on Aug. 18, the Trump administration's USDA said the policy has become an obstacle for active forest management.

The USDA argues the repeal would allow for more wildfire-risk reduction work, timber production, jobs and economic development and would return decisions to local forest managers to respond to environmental and economic conditions.

But the USDA's own 300-page environmental impact analysis of the proposed repeal found that eliminating the national rule is “likely to adversely affect” 327 threatened or endangered species and 71 designated critical habitats nationwide.

In the Shawnee, conservationists point to threatened wildlife such as the Indiana bat and timber snake that depend on an intact forest habitat.

"There are two kinds of endangered bats in the Shawnee that are very important to agriculture because they're insect-eating machines," Thayer said. "They do hard work for us."

The proposed repeal also comes as the Trump administration has narrowed the Endangered Species Act and as climate change puts additional pressure on Shawnee's ecosystems.

Lechner said Shawnee's Forest Service faces an even more basic problem: It doesn't have the resources to fully assess the number of species already in the forest.

"The truth of the matter is we don't even really know what we have," he said. "We don't have money to do basic inventory. ... There is just a ton of biodiversity to protect, and you go opening up roads, you're going to change the amount of sediment that's coming down the creek and change the creek."

Lechner echoed American ecologist Aldo Leopold's famous warning about conservation, that society often stands guard over famous works of art while species representing “the work of aeons are stolen from under our noses.”

"The ‘Mona Lisa’ paints a pretty picture," Lechner said. "But the Indiana bat and its ecological role deserves our protection."

---

THE COSTS OF REPEAL

If the Roadless Rule is repealed, decisions about future road construction and management would return to individual national forests through their forest plans, subject to public involvement and existing environmental laws, according to the Forest Service spokesperson.

This would give local managers greater flexibility to address wildfire risk, forest health, watersheds, timber production and local economic conditions.

Timber production is a core part of the Trump administration's argument for repealing the Roadless Rule, and the Forest Service says removing restrictions would potentially increase the amount of federal forestland available and generate additional revenue.

That argument is particularly relevant in rural communities where the timber industry remains an important source of employment and revenue.

The agency's analysis projects up to \$11 million in additional timber revenue from the repeal.

But the same August analysis also projects economic losses tied to the loss of roadless areas. The Forest Service estimates about \$9 million in annual losses to outdoor recreation and tourism, along with up to \$6 million in lost economic benefits from businesses and wildlife recreation in areas that are no longer roadless.

“So \$5 (million) to \$11 million in new timber revenue, maybe,” Thayer said. “And \$15 million in negative economic harm to outdoor recreation and tourism, and another additional \$5 (million) to \$11 million in economic losses related to the ecosystem benefits that will be lost to cleaning our water, cleaning our air, and securing our climate.”

“So the federal government runs the numbers on its own proposal and finds out that we will be far worse off economically each and every year that the Roadless Rule is not in place,” Thayer said. “That’s their conclusion.”

Beyond aiding timber production, repealing the national rule could expand access for mining and other extractive operations, opponents say.

That possibility is particularly relevant in parts of the Shawnee.

Eagle Creek, one of the forest's six roadless areas, sits near southern Illinois landscapes with a long history of coal mining, including active and historic mining areas outside the Shawnee's

boundaries.

“Illinois is the fourth-largest coal-producing state. We are still mining a lot of coal,” Pankau said.

Ripple Hollow, another roadless area, contains silica deposits.

Pankau emphasized that repeal itself would not mean mining or logging would immediately begin.

“It’s not like this is repealed, and all of a sudden they’re logging and mining silica at Ripple Hollow, but that would be a possibility,” she said.

FORESTS WITH FEWER HANDS

For Simons, the Shawnee is both home and workplace.

He and his wife, Vicki, live with their five horses on property near roadless areas and trail systems. As chair of the Illinois chapter of the Back Country Horsemen of America, Simons works with the Forest Service and leads a team of volunteers who spend thousands of hours maintaining public lands.

His volunteers use horses to haul rocks, clear fallen trees and repair damaged trails — work that can be done without bringing motorized equipment into some of the forest's more remote areas.

"The Back Country horsemen are great," Lechner said. "They haul rocks for us and really help out with trail maintenance, and they understand one of the things about wilderness is you're not supposed to change it."

This support has been especially necessary as Lechner said Shawnee's Forest Service has faced staffing and budget cuts, like the rest of the nation's public lands workforce. When he started in 2003, Lechner said Shawnee's Forest Service had 120 staff members — when he retired in 2020, he said the agency's staff was down to around 50 or 60 employees doing the same amount of work.

Nationally, the Back Country Horsemen of America reported more than 200,000 volunteer service hours last year, with an estimated economic value of about \$12 million. Simons said the Illinois chapter contributed roughly \$97,000 worth of volunteer labor.

The staffing reductions extend beyond Shawnee. According to reporting from The New York Times, the Trump administration has cut nearly 6,000 Forest Service employees, responsible for managing millions of public lands across the country.

"There's just fewer people to safeguard our forests, and there are fewer protections for the forests," Thayer said. "It's the citizens and it's organizations that are filling the gap where the federal government should really be in the business of protecting

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ROADLESS

from Page A4

our public lands, not selling them off."

The work extends beyond trail maintenance. Simons said his team regularly picks up trash and has removed hundreds of illegally dumped tires from the forest.

He worries that additional roads and access could bring more of that work.

"If you build a road, all those things will increase," Simons said. "All the bad influences that roads bring will increase."

The Forest Service also has a substantial backlog of deferred road maintenance, with the agency estimating that cost at more than \$9 billion.

"There's far more roads in our national forest than there are miles of interstate highway system in the United States," Thayer said. "It's gotten away from us."

According to the Forest Service, it maintains over 265,000 miles of roads. The interstate system is just under 47,000 miles, the Federal Highway Administration says.

"The bottom line is we can't take care of the roads we have," Lechner said. "So opening up more forest for more roads that they're not going to be able to maintain doesn't make any sense."

'WHIPLASH OF ADMINISTRATIONS'

The debate over the Roadless Rule is also part of a decades-long cycle over how much control the federal government should have over undeveloped national forest lands.

The Roadless Rule was adopted in 2001 after receiving overwhelming public support, Thayer said.

"So many people commented on it that it set a record for the most comments ever on a federal rule," he said.

But since then, the Roadless Rule has been on the chopping block with each administration. A proposed repeal was issued during the Bush years, and then again last June.

"There have been attempts to scrap the roadless rules since the very beginning," Thayer said. "It's really a saga of one administration that could come in and lift it up, and the next administration could come in and seek to overturn everything. And that seesaw battle has continued across the entire 25 years of the existence of the Roadless Rule."

Indigenous people have also had to navigate the “whiplash of administrations,” according to Jenny Van Sickle, an outreach specialist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, an advocacy organization that works with the Ojibwe tribes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Tribal nations have been here since time immemorial,” she said. “We can be a helpful force in land stewardship, and we will work with any administration.”

Among the affected roadless areas, 196,000 acres are within Ojibwe territory. Van Sickle said 11 member tribes rely on treaty rights to harvest resources such as maple sap, cedar boughs and other forest products, essential for guaranteeing traditional ways of life on indigenous lands.

“Treaty rights are not optional,” Van Sickle said. “And it’s not a special privilege that anybody granted.”

She said changes to public lands can have implications beyond the boundaries of an individual forest because development, pollution or habitat loss can affect the resources tribes depend on.

“Shifting that responsibility to have it piecemeal in the states risks the integrity of a forest that is crossing boundaries it doesn't know exists,” Van Sickle said. “It's really difficult to treat that as a segmented system when it's all very connected, like rivers and oceans.”

Because of these risks, many conservation groups and lawmakers are anxious to see permanent protections.

In 2025, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois co-sponsored the Roadless Area Conservation Act, which would codify the rule's protections in federal law. The legislation, which was reintroduced after earlier attempts, has not advanced out of committee.

“Shawnee National Forest, one of Illinois’ most beautiful landscapes, welcomes thousands of visitors each year who come to enjoy the view and hiking trails,” Durbin said in a Sept. 18 statement to the Tribune. “The Roadless Rule, which has overwhelming public support, has protected portions of Shawnee National Forest for more than two decades, and the Trump Administration’s attempts to strip the rule is shameful.”

Durbin also introduced legislation last year specifically addressing the Shawnee, including a proposal to establish 12,700 protected areas within the forest, called special management areas. Ripple Hollow and Burke Branch, two areas that are currently at risk of losing Roadless Rule protections would be within those special areas.

PUBLIC PUSH

The USDA first announced a deadline of Sept. 21 for public input, but environmentalists pushed back to get it extended to Tuesday. Thayer said he still believes the process has been too rushed.

"One has to wonder why, when the federal government proposes something that it believes is a good idea, it would minimize public comment and hold no public meetings at all," he said. "It's very much a rush job to do something that the Trump administration absolutely knows is wildly at odds with what the public wants."

ELPC has asked the public to sign a petition opposing the repeal. Last month, 164 members of Congress also signed a letter opposing the proposal.

Simons hopes people speak up.

“Once they change these things, you can’t just go and put them back,” he said. “To say we’re going to take this road out and plant trees back where the road is, it just doesn’t work that way. It takes 50 to 60 years.”

Christiana Freitag is a freelancer.

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The 76-year-old attorney and eldest son of the founders of one of the state's largest family-owned businesses faces Democratic nominee Juliana Stratton, Illinois' lieutenant governor. While Tracy notes she may not be a household name, Stratton is one of the top officials in the state's dominant party and No. 2 to billionaire Gov. JB Pritzker, who has long supported her politically and financially.

The race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is the first open Senate contest in Illinois since 2010, when Republican Mark Kirk beat Alexi Giannoulias, now secretary of state and a candidate for Chicago mayor. Since then, Illinois Republicans have suffered a string of statewide defeats as the national party has moved further right under President Donald Trump, who has endorsed the GOP nominee for governor, Darren Bailey, but not Tracy.

Tracy said his own candidacy will help other Illinois Republicans.

"We don't have a strong bench in the Republican Party," Tracy said in a September interview with the Tribune. "I (was) state party chair. I know the players. And I think this is an opportunity to begin to make it a two-party state again.

"I happen to think I'm, for better or for worse, the best-qualified Republican to win that seat."

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TRACY

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The 76-year-old attorney and eldest son of the founders of one of the state's largest family-owned businesses faces Democratic nominee Juliana Stratton, Illinois' lieutenant governor. While Tracy notes she may not be a household name, Stratton is one of the top officials in the state's dominant party and No. 2 to billionaire Gov. JB Pritzker, who has long supported her politically and financially.

The race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is the first open Senate contest in Illinois since 2010, when Republican Mark Kirk beat Alexi Giannoulias, now secretary of state and a candidate for Chicago mayor. Since then, Illinois Republicans have suffered a string of statewide defeats as the national party has moved further right under President Donald Trump, who has endorsed the GOP nominee for governor, Darren Bailey, but not Tracy.

Tracy said his own candidacy will help other Illinois Republicans.

"We don't have a strong bench in the Republican Party," Tracy said in a September interview with the Tribune. "I (was) state party chair. I know the players. And I think this is an opportunity to begin to make it a two-party state again.

"I happen to think I'm, for better or for worse, the best-qualified Republican to win that seat."

---

LONG ODDS, LESS CASH

Tracy faces a two-headed challenge: Pritzker's vast resources behind Stratton and "the Trump factor," said Kirk Dillard, a former Republican state senator and former chair of the Regional Transportation Authority. Dillard has known Tracy for decades and ran for governor in 2014 with Tracy's sister-in-law, Jil Tracy, as his running mate.

"For anyone that is scared off by Darren Bailey — and that would especially probably be suburban women — Don Tracy needs to differentiate himself from that, as well as letting people know that he clearly understands the importance of the city of Chicago," Dillard said. "Having Don Tracy be the standard-bearer of the Republican Party ... it should reassure regular traditional establishment Republicans that there is still a place for them in the Republican Party."

Tracy said it was an easy decision to skip the Trumpled GOP midterm convention in Dallas last month, deciding instead to campaign in Illinois and sit down with the Tribune at a downtown Chicago coffee shop to discuss his priorities.

"I'm just $100\%$ focused on winning this campaign, and I just didn't see how going out, going to Dallas was going to be as important as, say, sitting with you or speaking in Evanston tonight, being on Polish radio earlier today or attending the joint meeting of the German American Police Association, Polish American Police Association and Emerald Society last evening, and whatever else I did yesterday," he said.

Still, Tracy repeatedly declined to say whether running alongside Bailey, with Trump leading the national party, made it harder to win over independent Illinois voters.

Then there's money. Tracy is a scion of a large family business, but says he doesn't have “Pritzker bucks,” a reference to the governor's status as a billionaire member of one of the wealthiest families in the country.

Tracy, who previously lent his campaign \$2 million, said early this month he had lent his campaign another \$1 million-plus. He didn't immediately share how much he raised this summer, and the deadline to report fundraising activity is weeks away. Stratton's campaign said it raised \$1.53 million across multiple campaign funds this summer, though it also had not yet formally filed its reports.

Tracy raised about \$133,000 from April through June and spent more than he brought in, according to federal campaign finance records filed in July. By comparison, Stratton raised more than \$1.1 million, and Bailey raised \$1.33 million.

It's hard to raise “big money” as a Republican running statewide in Illinois, Tracy said. “In Illinois, money still gravitates to the power. Illinois Republicans have very little power in this state.”

Tracy also hasn't gotten much free media attention.

The general election campaign for the U.S. Senate seat representing Illinois has been far quieter than the blockbuster races in competitive states around the nation where control of the Senate hangs in the balance. It hasn't even generated the same interest seen in the primaries earlier this year, with Democrats so highly favored statewide.

Tracy and Stratton are scheduled to appear together just once, on WTTW in late October, according to the campaigns. The Tracy camp blames that on the Democrat's lack of engagement.

Even so, Tracy has continued to appear on TV, including a mid-September Fox 32 interview that he said was supposed to be a debate with Stratton. He is running digital ads pitching himself as someone who can “keep it simple,” while also trying to tie Stratton to socialism. As he introduces himself to more voters in Chicago and the suburbs, he has often stayed in a city condo he bought last fall

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OPPOSING 'SOCIALISM' AND 'EXTREMES'

To understand how high Tracy thinks the stakes are, look up at his campaign billboards, like the one looming over the junction of the Dan Ryan and Stevenson expressways.

“SOCIALISM DESTROYS LIVES,” it reads. “VOTE DON TRACY FOR US SENATE.”

Stratton doesn't identify as a socialist. But she carved out a lane in the Democratic primary by taking progressive positions, campaigning to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to raise the federal minimum wage to \$25 — positions that helped her stand out in the primary earlier this year.

Tracy calls Stratton's positions radical and is campaigning against “extremes” in energy, business regulation and resistance to immigration enforcement.

Also central to his campaign is a call for geographic balance. Illinois, he says, shouldn't be represented in the Senate by two Cook County Democrats, as it would be if Stratton wins. U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat, lives in Hoffman Estates, and Stratton lives in Chicago; Durbin lives in Springfield.

“Most of the Democrats in charge of the state and the city are career politicians, or career government workers,” Tracy said. “They’ve never had to make a payroll like I had to make a payroll. So we need someone from a more conservative basis with a business background to be involved, and I think I’m it.”

But to win in heavily blue Illinois, Tracy will need to win over independents and even some Democrats. And in his Tribune interview, he took several stances that seem unlikely to appeal to Democrats, including defending a position he took in a primary campaign appearance on CBS Chicago when asked whether he agreed with Trump's immigration enforcement tactics.

“In sanctuary cities, immigration law enforcement is more of a challenge because of massive resistance,” Tracy said in the CBS interview. “Much like the resistance to civil rights in the South.”

Asked whether he was comparing Chicagoans resisting federal immigration enforcement to white Southerners resisting integration during the Civil Rights Movement, Tracy said he was, “in a sense.”

“A lot of the elected officials in the South and their supporters were opposed to that federal law, and they were in open defiance of a federal law. And in sanctuary cities, particularly ... relative to the enforcement of federal immigration law, have been in open defiance of federal immigration law," Tracy said. "There's no civil rights law that says you cannot enforce federal immigration law."

Tracy said he wants to see greater cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, a practice that is largely barred under Illinois law.

“It works so much better, because if you have to go into the community to take people out of their homes and their places of work and whatever, that gets a little dicey sometimes,” he said.

Though it's primarily a state issue, Tracy also said Illinois' elimination of cash bail, and his belief that it has resulted in a rollback of pretrial detention, "went overboard." He cited the case of Bethany MaGee, who was set on fire on a CTA Blue Line train last year in an attack allegedly carried out by a man who had been arrested dozens of times.

He lamented high taxes and slow economic growth and called Chicago “the murder capital of the country,” based on its total number of annual homicides. Chicago’s homicide rate has been declining for several years, however, and the city does not lead the nation in killings per capita.

Tracy's ads blame Pritzker and Stratton for higher gas taxes. Asked what he would do as a senator to lower gas prices and promote American energy, Tracy first said that resolving the Iran war "would instantly lower the price of gas."

“Then, energy dominance,” he said.

"I'm an environmentalist," he continued, noting that his birthday falls on Earth Day. But he decried "extremists."

"They want to go green overnight based on what I would call very questionable science," Tracy said. "The Earth is getting warmer, but ... it's not settled science that we're in a climate crisis."

In an interview with Quad Cities TV station WHBF, he said Stratton goes too far on healthcare.

“She wants to throw out our pretty good healthcare system,” he said in the interview.

---

FROM LAWYER TO PARTY POLITICS

At age 10, Tracy started working at the family business, later named Dot Foods after his mother, Dorothy. His parents founded the company in 1960.

Growing up in Mount Sterling in western Illinois, Tracy said, he worked in the warehouse when it was just a two-car garage.

"Now, it's the largest food redistributor in North America," said Tracy, the oldest of 12 siblings. "We didn't get there because of government handouts or because of some brilliant new invention. We got there through just hard work, by delivering — (I) like to say, delivering groceries cheaper and better than anybody else."

After graduating from Arizona State University, Tracy went to law school at the University of Memphis while Dot expanded into the South, he said. He listened to tapes to study for the bar exam while making sales calls for Dot in the Mississippi Delta, and eventually realized he was more interested in the law than in sales.

He went on to practice law, often for the family business. He's has been a corporate lawyer at Brown, Hay & Stephens since the 1990s.

But even then, he kept politics in the back of his mind. In 2002, he ran for a state Senate seat as a Democrat, he said, because he thought he had friends on both sides of the aisle and could be more independent as a Democrat in Sangamon County, then a Republican stronghold.

The strategy didn't work. His opponent blew him out of the water, receiving $70\%$ of the vote.

Tracy soon thereafter realized there was “no future” for him as a conservative in the Democratic Party, he said, and he started getting more involved in Republican politics. He first attended fundraisers and eventually ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2010, when candidates for that office were nominated separately from the governor.

When Dillard and Jil Tracy ran as a ticket in 2014, Don Tracy formed a fundraising committee to support them. After Bruce Rauner won the GOP primary, Tracy raised money for Rauner.

Rauner went on to defeat Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn and appointed Tracy chair of the Illinois Gaming Board, where he was tasked with regulating video gaming and riverboats.

“They said, ‘Well, we’d like you to be Gaming Board chair,’” Tracy recalled. “I said, ‘Well, you got anything else?’” Eventually, he took the job.

He resigned after Rauner lost his reelection bid to Pritzker in 2018. In 2019, Tracy faced one of the bigger controversies of his political career: a state inspector general's finding, much of it later undercut, that he had engaged in political activity while on the Gaming Board, partly tied to political contributions that his wife, Wanda, made during his tenure.

Senate GOP nominee Don Tracy jokes with his grandkids at a fundraising event in Decatur on July 22. E. JASON WAMBSGANS/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

A Don Tracy for U.S. Senate billboard is displayed at the junction of the Dan Ryan and Stevenson expressways in Chicago on Wednesday. CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Don Tracy, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, walks the Schaumburg Septemberfest Labor Day Parade on Sept. 7. JOHN STARKS/DAILY HERALD

More than five years later, the state Executive Ethics Commission ruled that the inspector general's office had not proved certain allegations that Tracy violated state law, and that the commission lacked jurisdiction to rule on others.

But the original finding still seems to sting, as does the yearslong fight to push back on it. Looking back, Tracy said he sees it as a lesson in administrative agencies amassing too much power.

“And had I not had the resources and been a lawyer ... I would have surrendered, like so many people do,” he said.

After leaving state government, Tracy was elected chair of the state Republican Party in 2021. By then, Republicans hadn't won a statewide election in more than six years, and Trump had falsely claimed victory in a presidential election he lost, deepening divisions within the party nationwide.

Narrowly elected by a moderate coalition of the Republican State Central Committee, Tracy was the first state GOP chair in decades chosen from outside the Chicago area.

But during his time in the role, the losses continued as Democrats cemented their control of all three branches of state government.

Tracy left the volunteer post after three years amid a flurry of party infighting. He resigned days after Illinois Republican leaders deposed Mark Shaw of Lake Forest as state GOP vice chair over controversies related to the 2024 state convention.

In hindsight, Tracy said he would have done a lot differently in that fight, including not allowing Shaw to be removed without a hearing.

---

A 'THROWBACK CANDIDATE'

Tracy is a “throwback candidate,” “as earnest as the day is long” and a contrast to the “professional politicians” on the Democratic side, said Richard Porter, a former Republican National Committeeman and a friend of Tracy’s who considered a run for the seat last year.

Porter repeatedly compared him to Jimmy Stewart's character, Jefferson Smith, in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," a classic 1939 movie about an ordinary, good man appointed to the U.S. Senate.

But unlike Mr. Smith, Tracy has no shortcut to Capitol Hill.

Because of Tracy's time leading the party, he could serve as a bridge between Trump-enthusiast Republicans and the rest of the GOP, Dillard said. Several allies emphasized that he's in the race because of his principles, regardless of the odds.

“Don Tracy is a low-key but highly likable gentleman,” Dillard said. “Whatever’s left of the Illinois Republican Party base, he should do pretty well there.”

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Staking a claim in quantum education

As the science's presence grows on the Southwest Side, Chicago State University students eye future careers

Russell Ceballos, assistant professor, speaks with twin students James, left, and John Kountz about a quantum optics laboratory contained in what is called the Quantenkoffer at the Quantum Education, Science & Technology Center at Chicago State University on Sept. 22. STACEY WESCOTT/CHICAGO TRIBUNE PHOTOS

Valerie Goss, professor of chemistry and director of Quantum Education, Science & Technology Center at Chicago State University, on Sept. 22. "We want to be drivers of new knowledge in the fields," Goss said.

By Kate Perez

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

In hushed voices in a darkened room, John and James Kountz stared intently at what looked to any unsuspecting person like a computer screen inside a metal suitcase. The identical twins in matching forestgreen shirts leaned in and watched as two frequencies created hills and valleys on the screen of the Quantenkoffer, a \$250,000 quantum optics laboratory machine housed in Chicago State University's Quantum Education, Science & Technology Center, as they searched for the smallest discrepancies in the data.

Other college freshmen might be outside soaking up the nice weather on this sunny September day. But for the Kountz twins, being nestled inside the CSU quantum center is the best place to be, a second home where they can get hands-on experience with quantum physics, biology and more.

It's a career path the engineering physics majors didn't envision when they first started learning about science and engineering, but one that has become a passion, growing by the day as they begin their college years.

And while quantum is often associated with the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, the \$9 billion, 440-acre development under way at the former U.S. Steel South Works site, CSU was staking its claim in the field nearly a decade ago — years before the development composed of businesses, tech firms, researchers, manufacturers and quantum companies led the Southeast Side to be dubbed the “future of quantum.”

Inside the CSU quantum lab, the twins use the Quantenkoffer to measure subatomic particles, watching for signs they exist in the same quantum state at the same time.

The chance to get up close with data, experiments, and technology so early in their college careers drew both twins to CSU, especially after growing up in the city's Austin neighborhood, John Kountz said.

“It’s beautiful, because you’ve got normal kids (here) and we’ve never seen ourselves in this position, especially at our age,” John Kountz said of himself and his brother doing research in the lab. “We were like, we’re going to be 50 when we get to this level, but here we are.”

The two brothers had always been creative and curious, with a shared desire to be engineers, they told the Tribune between experiments last month. It wasn't until their high school physics teacher introduced them to the world of quantum that they considered how it could pair with engineering. From there, they were enamored with the subject.

For James Kountz, CSU was a natural choice to further his interest in quantum and his career. It's been hard for him to wrap his head around all the strides he and his brother have made in the quantum world over the last few years. They've taken international trips, learned from local scientists including at Fermilab, and volunteered to teach quantum at CSU over the summer before they were even students after being invited by the university's assistant professor of (quantum) physics, Russell Ceballos.

“I always wanted to be in a lab ... we wanted to be engineers at 6,” James Kountz said, adding that he would see pictures and videos of scientists growing up but didn’t know if that life was fully attainable. “You think, man, they must be geniuses ... that’s how it felt to us. So us being in the labs now, looking back, it’s like we’re meeting up with our childhood goals. That’s the most exciting thing.”

Only weeks into the semester, the two brothers are known on campus, too, getting greeted by “what’s up, twins” from passersby. While it’s nice to be recognized for their presence in the quantum community, it

---

"Quantum is not just for people who are doing the hard science, it's the people from history, business, pharmacy, all these different disciplines ... everybody can come into this field."

VALERIE GOSS, a chemistry professor at CSU and director of the quantum center

has carried some weight as well. Multiple people have told the twins that they are role models and a symbol that quantum can be a space for anyone, no matter their background, John Kountz said. "We know people are watching us, so we gotta be trying as hard as we can ... people look up to us," he said. "We represent a lot of people, whether we know it or not."

Still, the twins have four years to go before graduation. Afterward, they have plenty of options: They could return to CSU to earn a certificate in quantum, start a business or further their education elsewhere. But for the next few years, they plan to be heads down in research, learning as much as they can before entering the workforce.

"We definitely want to try to do a business. We want to do something in the quantum field, like make the materials for quantum machines (and) quantum technology," John Kountz said.

---

'A GOOD FOUNDATION': CSU'S QUANTUM IMPACT ALREADY FELT

Chicago State's presence in the quantum field has grown since it began exploring it in 2017, according to Valerie Goss, a chemistry professor at CSU and director of the quantum center. Goss has seen quantum technology blossom and improve since research began, building on existing science to create new ways to explore computing practices and other analyses.

The field is more accessible than it was a decade ago, Goss said, adding that there's space for everybody in quantum now, with more Black and brown people involved than before.

“Quantum is not just for people who are doing the hard science, it’s the people from history, business, pharmacy, all these different disciplines... everybody can come into this field,” Goss said. “Where there were a few voices, now there are many, and they’re coming from all areas of the city and the region.”

That access has expanded over the years with CSU offering both a minor and certificates in quantum technology, and providing research opportunities like the quantum lab.

CSU is also part of a National Science Foundation program called Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Quantum Sensing for Biophysics and Bioengineering, or QuBBE, where students aim to create new ways to use quantum measurements in biology and foster their quantum workforce skills through STEM education. Even before entering college, K-12 students can attend programs to learn about quantum.

These opportunities are what draw students interested in quantum to CSU and the city's South Side, Goss said, adding that the students are their motivation and “driving force.” Advancing the school and the field means partnering more strongly with quantum industry partners and protecting the opportunities students already have, like internships and jobs.

"We want to be drivers of new knowledge in the fields," Goss said, which attracts students. It's a match because the students want to do research at the undergraduate and graduate level, and that's where CSU aims to make inroads. The university is doing its best, Goss said, to ensure those research opportunities move forward.

Those opportunities include the high-profile Iilinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, or “quantum park,” just 5 miles away from CSU’s campus. The university’s strong foundation in the field positions it as an industry leader in the Chicago area, according to the park’s workforce development lead, Emily Whitman Easton. And CSU creates a “hyperlocal opportunity” for people on the South and Southeast sides to train and advance a quantum career if they choose to.

"If we are looking to build a technology workforce that does not repeat the same mistakes of the past, an institution like Chicago State — who is a trusted educational partner which is a predominantly Black institution — taking a leadership role here is a huge step forward in how we can build an inclusive tech economy in a way that literally doesn't look like the other economies we've seen," Whitman Easton said.

Those roles can span from technical quantum computing positions to human resources or business analytics. Through its wide program offerings, CSU is preparing all students to enter a workforce where quantum is growing and showing that the field has places for people on the Southeast Side, Whitman Easton said.

“Chicago State, by helping us develop a quantum literate community, is just serving so many workforce needs in a field that people might not have considered themselves a part of,” Whitman Easton said.

The students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels can feel the program's uniqueness, too. For graduate student Dell-Rio Johnson, 22, who has a background in computer science but came to the university to pursue the quantum certificate and start research in the lab over the summer, CSU's offerings add more skills to the field he already knows.

“I think it’s a good foundation for you to jump into any avenue of quantum,” Johnson said, adding that he could see himself pursuing a job in the Chicago area or adapting elsewhere. “I’m open to anything really. As much as I can learn and as much experience as I can get (that’s) hands-on ... it’s definitely, I feel like, the best place to get a starter foundation and other opportunities.”

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Father of four, beloved barber fatally shot in smoke shop

Mohammad Abuhashish, right, pictured with Akram Sukar Ijbara, left, and Laith Abuhashish, center. Abuhashish was found fatally shot at a Portage Park smoke shop on Thursday. AKRAM SUKAR IJBARA

By Tess Kenny

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Every two weeks for the past 10 years, Nelson Ortega has sat down in Mohammad Abuhashish's Irving Park barber chair and gotten a fresh trim. Friday morning was supposed to be no different.

But when Ortega arrived for his standing haircut this week, the shop was still closed. Abuhashish never made it to their appointment.

The 34-year-old barber and business owner was found fatally shot Thursday night inside a Portage Park smoke shop, according to loved ones, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner's office. Friends say Abuhashish, of Norridge, leaves behind four children and his wife, who's pregnant with their fifth child. Police had made no arrests as of Saturday morning.

"It's just felt so surreal," Ortega said, "that you can have a conversation with someone and then a week later, he's not around anymore."

Officers responded to calls of shots fired in the 5600 block of West Irving Park Road just after 9:30 p.m. When they arrived, they found Abuhashish unresponsive in AbuHashish Smoke Shop with a gunshot wound to his throat, per police and the medical examiner's office. He was transported to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he was later pronounced dead.

City and online state business license records show

Abuhashish was the registered agent for a smoke shop at 5612 W. Irving Park Road. The shop holds two active business licenses with the city, one for tobacco and another for retail food, according to the records. Both licenses were renewed a week ago.

Abuhashish had been an entrepreneur on the city's Northwest Side for years, according to business records and friends, with ventures including the smoke shop and Moe's Barber Shop at 4005 N. Elston Ave. He was hard-working, generous and kind, loved ones told the Tribune.

The community's love for Abuhashish was on display Saturday afternoon as a small memorial was set up outside the front door of the AbuHashish Smoke Shop. Lit candles flickered in the wind as four colorful bouquets sat propped against the building's brick facade along with a homemade sign that says "We love you, rest in peace Moe."

Abuhashish moved to Chicago when he was around 16 years old, friends said. From Jordan, he'd emigrated to make a better life for himself and his family.

"It's everybody's dream to come to the U.S. and become a successful person, you know?" said longtime family friend Akram Sukar Ijbara.

Ijbara had known Abuhashish since he arrived in Chicago as a teen. Abuhashish's uncle, who was a close friend of Ijbara's, introduced them. Through Abuhashish's first few years living in Chicago, Ijbara looked after him, he said. Ijbara also looked after Abuhashish's younger brother, who followed Abuhashish to Chicago.

"I felt like I was their older brother," Ijbara said.

Ijbara received news of the shooting early Friday morning. “I’m still in shock,” Ijbara said in a call Thursday night, choking back sobs. “I still can’t believe this is happening.”

In the wake of the shooting, State Rep. Lindsey LaPointe (D-Portage Park) said her office was in contact with Jefferson Park District (16th) police leadership, who relayed “detectives are actively working on the case and reviewing area camera footage.”

Police said a witness had observed an unknown male offender running on foot moments after gunfire was heard Thursday night.

Ald. Nick Sposato, 38th, said that to the best of his knowledge, there were never any problems reported at the smoke shop.

The last time Ortega saw Abuhashish was two weeks ago, for his last haircut at Moe's Barber Shop. He said his last conversation with

Abuhashish was about kids.

“I was telling him that I was gonna have a baby,” Ortega said. “I had told him that you know, I would love to have my baby’s first haircut by him.”

Ortega met Abuhashish by chance a decade ago. He'd recently moved to the Avondale area and was looking for a new barber when he found Moe's.

“They welcomed me,” he said.

Over years of haircuts, he and Abuhashish grew to know each other. They'd talk about anything and everything — cars, family, sports, what was going on in the world. Abuhashish was always cheerful and optimistic, Ortega said.

Ortega took to social media Friday to remember his friend. Under his post, condolences and comments poured in, some from other clients and community members, each recalling their own time with Abuhashish.

"He had touched so many people's lives," Ortega said.

Tribune reporter Allison Kiehl contributed to this report.

EVANSTON

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Dog beach to close Dec. 1 as legal concerns over lack of accessibility mount

By Claire Murphy

PIONEER PRESS

Evanston officials are throwing in the dog towel on approving a disability access ramp at the city's only designated dog beach, vowing instead to close off the area for public use beginning Dec. 1 until further notice.

The closure comes after City Council committee members failed to approve, yet again, a ramp design plan for the dog beach that meets Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. The beach has been out of ADA compliance since it reopened in 2022, despite numerous attempts by the city to construct a permanent ramp.

Fears over a potential lawsuit and other legal vulnerabilities propelled the Administration & Public Works Committee to vote to shut down the beach at their Sept. 28 meeting, giving time for officials to seek new proposals for the ramp at a cheaper price point.

“I feel terrible that this has taken so long,” Ald. Clare Kelly, 1st, voiced to committee members and attendees of the Monday meeting, some of whom previously aired grievances about the beach excluding disabled residents.

With the dog beach located in her ward, Kelly has been at the helm of ramp discussions and design vetoes, repeatedly taking issue with high cost and “unnecessarily elaborate” proposals brought forward by contractors, she told committee members when the ramp was last up for discussion Aug. 24.

“I did not want to see anybody with a walker walk three quarters the length of a football field with their dog to get onto the beach and then cut through the breakwater...I knew we could do better by our disabled community and by our entire community. So this has been really difficult.”

"The dog beach, as it stands, is illegal," said Murphy Monroe, a commissioner for the city's ADA compliance and disability access group.

"There is no other entity in Evanston that we would allow to stay open if it didn't allow a protected minority class to enter."

Located just south of Clark Street Beach in Evanston, the dog beach has faced chronic challenges over the years with rising water levels in Lake Michigan and a lack of breakwall protection.

While there are other beaches across the city accessible to people with disabilities, none allow off-leash roaming, according to city engineer Laura Biggs.

After unanimously rejecting Chicago-based contractor John Keno & Company's latest ramp design iteration — an \$863,850 proposal, which was more than \$113,000 over budget — committee members moved to close the beach Dec. 1 and work to formalize a contract for a lower-costing ramp by that same time frame. Evanston Parks & Recreation Director Audrey Thompson told committee members Monday the dog beach does not formally close for the winter, but typically shuts down intermittently due to ice and inclement weather.

Aldermen did not specify when the beach would likely reopen, but said it was unlikely to occur before an executed contract for the ramp's build is put in place, per Evanston legal counsel Alex Ruggie's advice.

While calls for a request for proposal (RFP) to construct a more affordable ramp by that deadline would demonstrate that the city was working toward a solution, Ruggie clarified that the best legal argument is to have an executed contract before a potential reopening.

According to city documents, several accessibility complaints have been reported to the City of Evanston within the past year regarding the beach's lack of a ramp, but a formal lawsuit has yet to be filed for noncompliance.

“I’m worried about the city’s exposure,” said Ald. Shawn Iles, 3rd, during the meeting via Zoom. “It’s been a long time, four years, that we’ve been working on this.”

Ruggie added that the federal government typically allows for a two-year grace period to meet ADA requirements, but the city has well surpassed the legal limit.

“(Evanston) continue(s) to make forward progress, so the city would argue that we are moving toward compliance,” Ruggie said in regard to the threat of a lawsuit.

“I think as soon as the city could be in compliance would be the best option.”

With a request for proposal issued by December, Kelly said it's reasonable for the public to expect the beach to reopen by May 2027.

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need and desire for space, while different, is not gone."

His work at Avison Young, a commercial real estate firm that tracks office markets, puts numbers to shifts in where Americans want to work. On one side are traditional offices, on the other alternative spaces that promise structure without a boss breathing over your shoulder.

Convention kept offices in the lead until the 2010s, when companies like WeWork and Regus won workers over with butcher-block desks and weekly happy hours. Then, offices fought back with breakout pods and coffee bars, a strategy that seemed foolproof until the pandemic leveled the playing field.

The tug-of-war continued in recent years, with co-working written off as little more than a temporary pandemic stopgap. But six years have passed since lockdown. Offices are open again. And masses of Chicagoans are still paying hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars a year to work in spaces that look less traditional than ever.

“Co-working is where it’s going to be at,” said Deena Zimmerman, principal broker at Baum Realty Group. “It’s a really fun trend to watch and be a part of.”

After nearly two decades in the industry, Zimmerman said co-working first landed on her radar around 2022, when tenants began approaching her with plans to open spaces of their own. One was Pup Social in Bucktown, which billed itself as co-working for dog lovers.

“I rarely go to the office,” said Zimmerman, 52, who lives in the West Loop. “Now that I’ve seen what I see, it’s almost like I can’t put that toothpaste back in the tube.”

She figured she'd bring her French bulldog, Millie, along for a day, expecting little more than a fun outing. Now, Zimmerman says Pup Social is the only place she works.

---

'MOVEMENT SNACKS'

Long days of emails and meetings are broken up by watching Millie romp with other dogs. Occasionally, Zimmerman gets her hair blown out at Pup Social's human beauty salon, not to be confused with the grooming area where her puppy gets pampered.

As more than 30% of Chicago's office space sits empty, foot traffic at buildings still in use remains roughly one-third below pre-pandemic levels, Boyd said. Meanwhile, the city added around 2 million square feet of co-working space last year, expanding a footprint that now spans nearly 350 locations, according to CoworkingCafe, which tracks flexible workspaces nationwide.

Larger national brands with traditional designs control a significant portion of that urban inventory, but data shows legacy chains aren't the ones driving Chicago's co-working expansion. New operators entering the market accounted for 40 of the 64 co-working locations that opened in the city last year, the highest such count nationwide and evidence of growing appetite for the unconventional.

“People really enjoy the fact that they can close their laptop and go climb,” said Dan Bartz, co-founder of First Ascent. “We’ve seen more utilization than ever of our co-working areas.”

Bartz said the idea started as a joke, an April Fool's Day social media post poking fun at what seemed, in 2017, like a preposterous concept: a co-working climbing space. But comments of support poured in, and Bartz began spreading dozens of desks across the company's network of Chicago climbing gyms.

Co-working has since become a centerpiece of the business, said Bartz, who adds more seats each year. Members break up the workday with what he calls “movement snacks,” quick climbing sessions that often spark friendships with others who have made the gym their office.

“We learned pretty quickly that members really want to be able to creatively integrate their life into this place,” said Bartz. “That’s exactly what we’re trying to create.”

Its success runs counter to the struggles of co-working's biggest names, from

WeWork's infamous 2019 collapse and eventual bankruptcy to Industrious laying off roughly $20\%$ of its workforce a year later. Both have since clawed their way back, but their models look markedly different from a growing crop of co-working spaces organized around interests that have little to do with the work itself.

“For a really long time, we talked about work-life balance like work is on one side and your life is on the other,” said Daniella Briseno Cornue, founder and owner of Le Village. “I think we realized during COVID that that was a myth.”

With on-site childcare, Le Village offers members a focused co-working space while their young children play and learn in supervised classrooms steps away. Parents can check in throughout the day, and a dedicated lunch break brings families back together to eat.

It's the kind of setup Briseno Cornue needed herself in 2018, when, as a hybrid worker with a newborn, she struggled to find daycare that would allow her to breastfeed during the workday.

Ultimately, she quit her job and created it herself.

She opened the first Le Village, an open-concept space in Irving Park, in 2019. A second followed in 2023, then four more. Today, all six locations operate at near-full membership capacity, according to Briseno Cornue, with three more in the works.

“We can’t cut ourselves in two, so we’ve started to create some unique ways to fill the gap,” said the 39-year-old Albany Park resident. “Work environments that are built around a different balance, I think, are going to be the future.”

'SAUNAS AND COLD PLUNGE POOLS'

Two years after her company shuttered its Chicago satellite office, Kelly Miller knew working from her one-bedroom apartment was taking a toll. She felt relegated to overstaying her welcome in noisy coffee shops and ending days without having spoken a word aloud.

Then a friend invited her to BI N, a luxury co-working club in River North.

“It was unbelievable,” said Miller, a 31-year-old marketing director who lives in Lincoln Park. “I remember leaving there and being like, ‘OK, I really need to find a space of my own.’”

Within hours of opening her laptop that day, Miller said she felt more focused and productive than she had in months. The sushi bar and on-site massage therapists didn't hurt, either.

The experience BI N sells, at \$4,400 a year plus a \$1,000 initiation fee, is one employers across Chicago are trying to replicate as they look for new ways to lure workers back to the office. It's why saunas and cold plunge pools have become standard fare in premium office buildings, why developments like The Bell on Randolph Street come with pickleball courts and a Formula 1 simulator.

"I tried it one time, and it's pretty advanced," said Alex Woods, a market intelligence analyst at Avison Young who tested the simulator himself. "There's a race to have the best amenities."

But amenities can only go so far, said architect Elyse Agnello, who has spent the past few years helping companies make their offices more collaborative. Agnello said shiny perks can't compete with spaces that give workers more control over where and how they spend their day.

Technology has evolved faster than workplace conventions, said Agnello, who founded Chicago design firm DAAM in 2016. Many employers remain wedded to what she considers the increasingly outdated premise that workers need to sit in an assigned spot and stare at an assigned screen.

That, she said, is where

traditional offices fall short.

“During the pandemic, for better or for worse, people’s eyes were open to how work could get done differently,” said Agnello. “Now, less rigor and more topography and fluidity just feel better.”

So, when Agnello and her two business partners opened Guild Row in Avondale, flexibility was central to their vision. The plan was to create a membership-based social club built around creative workshops and events, not another place to work.

Members turned it into one anyway, Agnello said, finding the community they wanted and bringing their jobs along with them. The Chicago Reader named Guild Row the city's best co-working space for three consecutive years, a distinction Agnello attributes partly to the fact that it was never designed to function like an office.

That means using furniture of varying heights to carve out distinct spaces within each room, giving members freedom to take meetings from picnic tables and patinated couches. She carefully tucked a beige printer and microwave beneath hanging plants and relegated the dozen members who pay extra for dedicated desks to a loft, keeping their computer monitors out of sight.

She's fielded her fair share of complaints about the lack of enclosed pods for private calls and the abundant natural light that can cast glare on computer screens. But Agnello said those inconveniences are the cost of creating a place people actually want to spend time in, even if members occasionally have to rotate out of the sun.

“People will tell you what they think they want,” she said, “but they’re totally willing to trade off having glare for having natural light every time.”

The defining feature of highly specialized co-working spaces, however, goes beyond baskets of free snacks or tufted upholstery straight out of Jay Gatsby's living room. Many members say the draw is a sense of belonging that forms naturally around a shared interest.

At Pup Social, Zimmerman says she easily connects with people whose professions she often knows little about. It doesn't matter that her makeshift colleagues don't share her employer, or that they might not even know what she does for a living. What feels special, she said, is that they didn't find each other simply because someone else put them in the same room.

"When you get around a group of people that are that likeminded, it's just really fun," she said. "It's much more inviting than going to an office, and my office would kill me for saying that, but it's the truth."

But that degree of specialization can carry trade-offs, said Gary Alan Fine, a sociologist and professor emeritus at Northwestern University. Fine, who spent his career studying how small groups develop their own cultures and relationships, said communities built around shared interests risk becoming too insular.

Treating such a space as an alternative to a traditional office could deprive workers of the different perspectives that are critical to personal and professional growth, he said. The strongest groups have not only emotional connection but a shared purpose, and Fine isn't convinced the latter comes naturally in a co-working space.

"To be successful is not just to have a whole bunch of good players, but to work together with a common goal and a sense of identity," he said. "Both are important in terms of getting things done."

---

THE WORK QUESTION

Most who work from specialized co-working spaces agree that they make the workday more enjoyable. What's less clear, experts say, is how they affect the work itself.

“I’ve never seen any research on co-working spaces,” said Yana Gallen, a labor economist and assistant professor at the University of Chicago who studies remote work.

Michael Gibbs, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who studies remote and hybrid work, came up empty, too.

"I cannot think of a single academic study looking at co-working," he said.

Gibbs is among the many academics who turned their attention to remote work as the pandemic pushed it into the mainstream. Since 2020, a growing body of research has examined its effects on everything from individual well-being to collaboration and productivity.

Viraj Mhatre interacts with his son, Theo, age 1, while Morgan Marquard plays with her daughter Abigail, also 1, during the parent lunch time at Le Village Coworking in the 3100 block of West Irving Park Road on Thursday in Chicago. STACEY WESCOTT/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Eddie Huang, right, 25, and Hayden Golemon, 27, work at tables at First Ascent climbing gym at Block 37 in downtown Chicago on Thursday. Huang and Golemon use the gym regularly to both work and climb during the week. CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Eddie Huang, 25, climbs at First Ascent climbing gym at Block 37 in downtown Chicago on Thursday. Huang uses the gym around three times a week to both work on his studies and climb. CHRIS SWEDA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Co-working may provide a level of social interaction that improves on working in isolation, Gibbs said, but research on its effects remains sparse. In the meantime, experts say it more closely resembles working from home than working from an office, and may carry many of the same drawbacks.

“You don’t learn about office politics,” said Gibbs. “You don’t get to meet senior people who might either be your mentors or who may consider you when it’s promotion time.”

Research has linked working in the office with higher productivity and promotion rates, Gibbs said, with every watercooler conversation offering another chance to exchange ideas and build camaraderie. Those professional benefits, in his view, are reason enough for workers with access to an office to spend at least some of their time there.

For many Chicagoans, though, returning to the office is less a choice than a mandate, with employers like Amazon and JPMorgan Chase last year requiring employees to return full time. Co-working operators say they've watched those policies ripple through their own spaces, bringing tears and frustration to members forced to leave.

“It’s absolutely devastating,” said Briseno Cornue.

Briseno Cornue said a number of members have canceled their Le Village memberships after being required to return to the office. More striking, she said, is that some ultimately quit those jobs and find new ones that allow them to return to co-working.

Zimmerman has an office of her own at Baum Realty, where dog-friendly policies mean Millie is always welcome. But why confine her to a bed in the corner when she could spend the day running around with other dogs?

It's the way a space differs from the office that can make co-working so special, mused Vanessa Ruiz as she spent a recent morning working from a bar stool at Guild Row. She and her wife have spent hundreds of workdays there since 2020, when pandemic-induced loneliness drove them to join.

What followed were life-long friendships, forged over dumpling classes and live music in the courtyard. Guild Row is where Ruiz threw her wife's 50th birthday party and where the couple looked forward to bringing their son as soon as he was born.

“It’s brought all these different aspects of life together,” said Ruiz, 43. “It’s not just a co-working space.”

---

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'Someone always knows about your behavior'

Illinois' acting legislative ethics watchdog warns lawmakers on sexual harassment

In an image from video, the Illinois General Assembly's acting ethics watchdog David Risley is shown speaking on the legislative inspector general's website.

By Jeremy Gorner

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

On his first official day as the Illinois General Assembly's acting ethics watchdog, David Risley had stern advice for any lawmakers or legislative staffers who commit sexual harassment.

“First, someone always knows about your behavior and someone will always talk about it to someone else, and sooner or later word will get to our office,” he said in a 10½-minute video posted Thursday on his office’s website. “Second, when we do hear about it, no matter who you are, given our investigative backgrounds in the (legislative inspector general’s) office, we’ve successfully investigated a lot bigger fish than you. So think about that and act like a decent human being.”

Risley, a former federal prosecutor from central Illinois, was chosen by the Legislative Ethics Commission as acting legislative inspector general after the previous officeholder, Michael McCuskey, resigned. McCuskey, a former state and federal judge, stepped down after facing questions over his handling of a female lobbyist's sexual harassment allegations against former state Rep. Harry Benton.

In the video, Risley said a top priority is making the inspector general's office a "safe place" for harassment victims. That means keeping the information they provide confidential, making sure investigators have the proper certifications and hiring more investigators, including some with expertise in sexual harassment, other workplace harassment and unlawful discrimination.

“We often hear or read about a culture of sexual harassment. I prefer to think of it as a subculture because most people find it abhorrent, including most legislators and most legislative branch employees, and they will not and should not tolerate it,” Risley said.

Risley's video release comes during a tumultuous year in Springfield around the issue of sexual harassment.

In July, Benton, a two-term Democrat from Plainfield, resigned from the legislature and withdrew from the November ballot amid pressure from House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch after the speaker received a copy of a report by McCuskey that found Benton engaged in a “pattern and practice” of sexual harassment against the lobbyist and two other women.

But a Tribune investigation published two weeks before McCuskey's report became public disclosed that Welch's office had been aware of sexual harassment allegations involving Benton for years. In April 2023, Welch's then-chief of staff received communications from one of the three women — a young female staffer in Benton's district office — about Benton's behavior. Welch took no action against Benton at the time and a year later even gave Benton's reelection campaign \$1.4 million.

While McCuskey's report supported the allegations against Benton, another of the three women, the lobbyist, was upset at how McCuskey handled the investigation.

In a letter to the four top legislative leaders, first reported by the Tribune, the lobbyist alleged McCuskey “violated the confidence of other victims and me, broke standard investigative norms, and made inappropriate comments” to her during their interview and in other interactions. She accused him of revealing confidential information about the two other women who had accused Benton and of failing to record or take “contemporaneous” notes during their interview. McCuskey stepped down at the end of September.

In the video message, Risley said two investigators should conduct each interview and, with permission, record and transcribe all interviews. People who file complaints, especially of sexual harassment, may bring an attorney, a friend, “or other support person with them if they so choose,” he said.

He also stressed the confidential nature of the office's work.

"In my previous career as a federal prosecutor, lives often depended on me keeping secrets secret and confidences confidential," Risley said. "For the latter part of my career I held a top secret security clearance. I've sometimes said I kept secrets for a living. Trust in confidentiality when confidentiality is called for is vital to the effective functioning of any investigative office, especially in the environment in which the legislative inspector general operates."

He added that “it’s far better to prevent ethics or other violations than to investigate and report them after the fact and the damage is done,” and pledged to be a resource for legislative staffers who handle ethics issues.

The legislative inspector general's office has a narrow focus on investigating misconduct allegations against the 177 members of the General Assembly and their staff. But ethics reformers have criticized it for not being empowered enough to root out potential misdeeds within the legislative branch.

Lawmakers have floated changes, including extending the one-year statute of limitations for the office to investigate allegations. Following criticism of Welch's handling of the Benton matter, a group of House Democrats has been brainstorming possible changes to law or internal policy to address workplace culture at the Capitol.

The Legislative Ethics Commission, made up of four Democratic and four Republican lawmakers, appointed Risley to serve until the full legislature confirms a permanent replacement. An acting legislative inspector general has the same authority as a permanent one and, if necessary, could serve until the current term ends on June 30, 2028.

However long he stays, Risley emphasized in the video that “violations will not be tolerated” and urged “those who either experience or observe sexual or other harassment, report it.”

"Be part of the solution, not a silent perpetuator of the problem," he said. "If you fear reprisal, we also enforce protections for whistleblowers."

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Roseland hospital closing its labor and delivery unit

Roseland Community Hospital CEO Tim Egan speaks to the media as U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin visits Roseland Community Hospital to highlight the threats to safety-net hospitals from Medicaid cuts on July 11, 2025. E. JASON WAMBSGANS/TRIBUNE

By Lisa Schencker

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Roseland Community Hospital plans to suspend its labor and delivery services at the end of this month — the latest South Side hospital to pull back on obstetric care.

Leaders of the Far South Side hospital did not make the decision to suspend the services “by choice,” hospital President and CEO Tim Egan said in a statement Friday.

"It is the result of decades of historical underfunding of safety-net hospitals that have made it impossible to sustain services that this community depends on and deserves," Egan said.

“This closure will be felt far beyond our neighborhood,” Egan said. “Women in this community will now have to travel farther and wait longer for obstetric care and in labor and delivery, distance and delay cost lives.”

Roseland had 17 obstetric/gynecology beds and 107 births in 2025, according to a Health Facilities and Services Review Board report.

Roseland, like many Chicago safety-net hospitals, has faced financial challenges for years. Earlier this year, the hospital struggled to make payroll after it didn't receive its Medicaid managed care organization payments as early as usual.

Safety-net hospitals treat large numbers of people on Medicaid, a state and federally-funded health insurance program for people with low incomes and disabilities. Medicaid typically pays hospitals less for care than private policies, and those payments don't cover the full cost of care, hospital leaders say.

In 2025, about $51\%$ of Roseland's inpatient revenue came from Medicaid. Safety-net hospitals also often struggle with aging facilities and, like other hospitals, face rising costs for supplies, medication and staffing.

The closure of obstetric units on the city's South Side has been particularly troubling to many, given disparities in maternal health outcomes between Black and white women.

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Since 2019, at least three other South Side hospitals have also closed their obstetric units, including Jackson Park Hospital and Medical Center, St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center and Insight Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago (formerly called Mercy Hospital).

“This closure will be felt far beyond our neighborhood. Women in this community will now have to travel farther and wait longer for obstetric care and in labor and delivery, distance and delay cost lives.”

TIM EGAN, president and CEO of Roseland Community Hospital

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In Illinois, Black women were three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related medical conditions as white women between 2018 and 2020, according to a state health department report on maternal morbidity and mortality. The rate at which Black women suffered severe pregnancy or delivery complications was more than two times that of white women.

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It will further strain individuals who may already be dealing with challenges related to transportation, finding fresh groceries and housing insecurity, she said.

In 2025, about $89\%$ of Roseland's patients were Black.

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847-998-1220 tor of Maternal Child Health Collective Impact at March of Dimes in Chicago, called the suspension of services at Roseland “really unfortunate.”

“Maternal mortality rates here are already too high,” Egan said in the statement. “This will make them worse.”

Michelle Adeniyi, direc-

“Illinois already had substantial maternity care access gaps, especially on the South Side,” Adeniyi said. “We know that there will be greater travel issues and limited access that will increase the risk for moms and babies.”

The change at Roseland is part of a larger trend of community hospitals across the state cutting obstetrics, often citing low numbers of patients caused by shifting demographics and more patients choosing to deliver at hospitals with major birthing centers.

Last month, Prime Healthcare announced plans to suspend obstetric care at three of its Illinois hospitals — St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Mercy Medical Center in Aurora and Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago. Prime said it would centralize labor and delivery services at two of its other hospitals and invest in maternal health in the community. The move drew criticism from the Illinois Nurses Association union, which worried about the community losing the service.

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ISAAC DANIEL 1933-2026

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Northwestern prof considered 'father of composite materials'

By Bob Goldsborough

FOR THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Professor Isaac Daniel in his Northwestern University office on Feb. 7, 2007, in Evanston. DAVID KLOBUCAR/TRIBUNE

Longtime Northwestern University engineering professor Isaac Daniel brought progress to the field of advanced composite materials and helped shape how they are used in industries such as aerospace, manufacturing, automotive and sports equipment.

Advanced composite materials are highly durable, lightweight items formed by two or more distinct substances that are tightly bound and can shoulder tremendous weight and pressure. Daniel also created an industry failure theory, called the Northwestern Theory, that helps scientists understand and predict composite materials' weaknesses and failure when they are under complex stresses.

A native of Greece, Daniel survived the Holocaust in his home country during his childhood, and self-published a personal account of his family's survival.

Daniel, 92, died of natural causes Sept. 3 at his home, said his daughter Rebecca Daniel Mottley. He had been a longtime Morton Grove resident.

Isaac Mordochai Daniel was born in Salonika, Greece, in 1933, one of four children. His family members were Sephardic Jews, who were relative newcomers among Greece's Jewish community, having arrived as a group during the 15th century.

Before World War II, Daniel and his family moved to his father's hometown, Veria, Greece, where Daniel attended high school. In 1943, Daniel's family found itself in the crosshairs during the Holocaust, his daughter said. Nazis wanted to deport Veria's entire Jewish community, and Daniel and his father escaped from a synagogue after police blocked its entrance.

Hiding out in their basement apartment, they initially avoided being deported, but eventually were betrayed and arrested, his daughter said. Execution was staved off by Daniel's mother's birthright Italian citizenship, but the family eventually was transferred to a transit camp in Salonika and faced deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

His daughter said the family was soon released and allowed to live in Athens, Greece's Italian-controlled zone, but with German forces taking control of Athens, the family began moving from place to place, surviving repeated arrests, searches and escapes.

After liberation, Daniel's family returned to Veria, counting their blessings as most of Greece's Jewish community had been killed by German forces. The family relocated to Chicago in 1953 and put down roots in its Sephardic Jewish community, residing first in Hyde Park and then in West Rogers Park.

Daniel enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology, getting a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1957, followed by a master's degree in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1964. Daniel initially didn't want to pursue research or an academic career, his daughter said, but leaders at IIT's Research Institute took an interest in his work and wanted to hire him.

He was an assistant research engineer at the institute from 1959 until 1961, an associate research engineer from 1961 until 1962 and a research engineer from 1962 until 1964.

Daniel then moved into more of a leadership role, where he headed projects as a senior research engineer and manager from 1964 until 1975, when he became a scientific adviser at the institute.

In 1982, Daniel became an engineering professor at IIT. He continued performing research. In 1986, he left IIT to join Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering as a professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, and he also had a joint affiliation with the university's departments of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering.

While at Northwestern, Daniel continued researching experimental mechanics and composite materials. Daniel's research included stress analysis, fracture mechanics, composite-material processing and damage mechanics.

Some of Daniel's composite-material innovations — particularly in the biomedical field and for the federal government — continue to be used, his daughter said.

He also held four patents, co-authored a widely used textbook, “Engineering Mechanics of Composite Materials,” and published more than 500 academic papers in technical journals and conference proceedings.

“Isaac Daniel made significant contributions to the fields of civil and mechanical engineering in a wide range of topics, particularly in experimental mechanics and composite materials,” said Emmanuel Gdoutos, a former visiting professor at Northwestern and a retired engineering professor at Greece’s Democritus University of Thrace, in an email. “He can be considered the father of composite materials research, (as) his research on composites spanned more than half a century. His work and ideas have been and will be indelibly imprinted on the pages of solid mechanics history.”

Gdoutos also said Daniel was “a sincere, honest, truthful, candid, genuine, straightforward (and) warm-hearted individual, loyal friend and colleague.”

Duke University mechanical engineering and materials science professor John Dolbow was a doctoral student in Northwestern's theoretical and applied mechanics program from 1995 until 1999, and took Daniel's introductory graduate course on composites. He called Daniel "a true gentleman and an excellent teacher."

"He was one of the kindest people I've ever met, and his enthusiasm for the material he taught was unusual," Dolbow said.

Iowa State University engineering professor Wenjie Xia was a Northwestern graduate student who took Daniel's experimental mechanics course in 2011. He recalled Daniel's mentorship and advice about navigating Ph.D. studies.

“Professor Daniel offered thoughtful guidance and, more importantly, gave me confidence and encouragement,” Xia said. “I remember him as an excellent teacher and a generous mentor who cared about students beyond the courses he taught. His ability to guide and reassure a new Ph.D. student during a challenging transition is what stands out most clearly to me.”

Daniel retired from North-western in 2019 at age 85.

Outside of work, Daniel enjoyed spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren, as well as following the news and reading historical fiction. He also was a great fan of his native language, Ladino, a Judeo-Spanish language spoken by Sephardic Jews that had been widely used in Greece before World War II.

Daniel, who could speak seven languages, loved Ladino literature and music, and would sing songs in Ladino, his daughter said. He also worked on a Ladino dictionary.

“Before he became an engineer, he wanted to be a Greek poet,” she said.

In 2023, Daniel self-published a 273-page memoir, "Seven Miracles — Surviving the Holocaust in Greece," which covers his family's challenges and experiences during the Holocaust, including while in hiding, while on the run and while under arrest.

Daniel also contributed a remembrance about his time during the Holocaust to Northwestern University Press' 2013 book "Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust."

In addition to his daughter, Daniel is survived by his wife, Elaine; another daughter, Belinda; a son, Max; four grandchildren; and a brother, Samuel.

Services were held.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.

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Chicago Daily Tribune

ON OCT. 4...

In 1777, George Washington's troops launched an assault on the British at German-town, Pa..

In 1822 the nation's 19th president, Rutherford Hayes, was born in Delaware, Ohio.

In 1895 the first U.S. Open golf tournament was held in Rhode Island.

In 1931 the comic strip “Dick Tracy,” created by Chester Gould, made its debut.

In1940 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini conferred at Brenner Pass in the Alps, where the Nazi leader sought Italy's help in fighting the British.

In 1957 the Space Age began as the Soviet Union launched

Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into orbit.

In 1958 the first trans-Atlantic passenger jetliner service was begun by British Overseas Airways Corp. with flights between London and NewYork.

In1965 Pope Paul VI became the first reigning pontiff to visit the Western Hemisphere as he addressed the U.N. General Assembly.

In 1987 National Football League owners staged their first games since the players union went on strike, with nonstriking and replacement personnel on the gridiron at sparsely attended stadiums.

In 1990 for the first time in nearly six decades, German lawmakers met in the Reichstag for the first meeting of reunified Germany's parliament.

In 1997 hundreds of thousands of men attended a Promise Keepers rally on the Mall in Washington in one of the largest religious gatherings in U.S. history.

In 1999 an Illinois jury ordered State Farm to pay \$456 million to 4.7 million customers, settling a lawsuit that accused the nation's largest auto insurer of using inferior parts for autobody repairs. (Four days later, the judge ruled State Farm had committed fraud, and awarded \$730 million in actual and punitive damages on top of the jury verdict; a state appeals court upheld the ruling, but struck down \$130 million in damages.)

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To learn more, please call or visit our website:

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Chicago Tribune Death Notices

Chicago Tribune extends our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have passed.

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In Memoriam

Bonnie (Bedrava) Hansen

02/04/1939 10/04/2018

Still miss you everyday.

Thanks for the memories...

Love Butch and the Kids

Death Notices

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Anderson (Torlak), Martha Jean

When Martha Anderson (Torlak) told people her birthdate — 4-4-44 — they always asked her if these were her lucky numbers and if she played the lottery. She always got a kick out of the reactions she would get. Martha Anderson passed away on September 27, 2026.

Martha grew up in Iron

Mountain and spent summers at Spread Eagle — a place where she loved to be. In 1962, Martha graduated from Iron Mountain High School where she was the editor of the paper "The Mountaineer." During high school, she went to journalism camp at Michigan State University and she knew then that she wanted to go to college. She went on to attend Knox College where she enjoyed Anthropology and Sociology courses; during these years, she met some of her dearest friends to this day. She graduated from Knox in 1966 with a degree in Sociology.

Martha and three of her college friends moved to Chicago where she started working as a caseworker for the State of Illinois. After five years in the field as a caseworker, she became a supervisor at Wicker Park. She went on to become an administrator at the Uptown and then the Northern office, which was the largest public aid office in the state. She spent her career not only helping people whom she worked with to provide services but also helping the people whom she worked with in the office. She always celebrated others' promotions and accomplishments. Martha also worked as the Employee Assistance Coordinator — a position that she found to be an honor to be chosen for.

In the 60s and 70s, Martha was active in social justice demonstrations in Chicago. She always believed in standing up for something and not being afraid; Martha was always an advocate for human rights.

On May 4, 1991, she married Ante Torlak, her loving husband. They shared a special bond and were there to support each other. In 2001, she received her life-saving liver transplant; in 2009, she received her life-saving kidney transplant. Through the generosity of two individuals, she lived for decades beyond what she would have without the donated organs.

At the end of her life, Martha felt like she was given the gift of time. She spent her final weeks hearing from and seeing friends and family — speaking all of the words that were a gift to say and hear. Her approach to life was simple: Just live everyday. Take advantage of your opportunities. Take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

Martha only played the lottery a few times in her life, but every time her birthday came around she felt lucky for another year and some more chances to say 4-4-44.

In the U.S., Martha is survived by her husband Ante Torlak, by her brother Bill Anderson (Linda) and her sister-in-law Boofer; nephews Bill Anderson (Amy) and George Anderson (Virginia); nieces Tracy Anderson (Bill), Katie Sytniak (John), Martha Fussman (Kevin); grand-nieces and nephews Cooper, Sophia, Emma, Ella, Sam, Amelia, Anderson, and Otto. Martha is pre-deceased by her mother and father, Lucille and William Anderson, and brother George Anderson.

In Croatia, brothers-in-law Ivan (Marija), Marco (Sena), and sister-in-law Marija Buovac (Mate); nephews and nieces Bozena, Yasna, Suzanna, Anita, Gordona, Drazen, Mario, Josip and Ivan.

In addition, Martha leaves behind cousins and many, many dear friends.

Martha asks that you consider honoring her by becoming an organ donor and giving others the chance to live that she has been given.

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Baecher, Viola Ozelle Reed

BAECHER, Viola Ozelle, August 19, 1943 – July 27, 2026. Born in Zanesville, Ohio to Rev. Granville William Reed, Jr. and Anita Ozelle Reed. Graduated Marshall High School, Roosevelt University (BA), University of Chicago (MMSW). Social worker and cheerleading coach at Rich Central High School; Village Trustee in Park For est. Family historian. Survived by daughter Victoria Baecher Wassmer [Franklin Wassmer], grandsons Alexander and Christophe Wassmer, brothers Rev. Rodger Hall Reed [Shirley Cason Reed] and Dr. Richard Earl Reed, and a host of family and friends. Preceded in death by parents, son Michael Baecher, and brother Rev. Dr. Granville William Reed III. Celebration of life Friday, October 9, 2026, 1:00 PM, Unitarian Universalist Community Church, 70 Sycamore Drive, Park Forest, Illinois. Memorials to Greater Chicago Food Depository (Chicago, IL), Mary's Center (Washington, DC), or Shockoe Institute (Richmond, VA).

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Death Notices

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Balk, Allen

Allen Balk, devoted husband, loving father, son, brother, uncle, and friend, suddenly passed away on September 25, 2026. Allen lived his life with devotion to his family, pride in his heritage, and satisfaction from a job well done. Whether he was restoring a car, tackling a home improvement project, or simply spending time with the

people he loved, Allen brought passion, determination, and an unmistakable personality to everything.

Above all, Allen was a devoted family man. He shared his life with his beloved wife, Lori, and was immensely proud of their daughter, Dana. Watching Dana build a life of her own with her husband, Carter, brought Allen great happiness and pride. His family was at the center of his life, and his love for them could be seen in the countless ways he supported, helped, and cared for them over the years. Allen was also a loving and devoted son to his mother, Philomena, and brother to his recently departed sister, Rosie. Their bond was built over a lifetime of love, shared memories, and family. Allen's loss has left an immeasurable absence. Allen is survived by his wife, Lori; his daughter, Dana, and her husband, Carter; his mother, Philomena; his sister, Joanne; his nephew, Aidan; and many loving cousins, extended family members, and friends. He was preceded in death by his sister, Rosemarie "Rosie" Balk.

Visitation will be Friday, October 9 from 4 to 8:00p.m. at Ivins/Moravecek Funeral Home, 80 E Burlington Street, Riverside. OnSaturday, October 10th Please gather at St. Mary Church, 105 Herrick Rd, Riverside, for Mass of Christian Burial at 10:30 a.m.

Funeral info at www.moravecek.com or 708447-2261.

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Barratt, Bethany A.

Professor Bethany A. Barratt

August 18, 1972-September 28, 2026

Bethany Barratt was born in Beirut, Lebanon where her father was assigned to the Military Attaché office of the United States Embassy. She spent her childhood in Fayetteville, North Carolina and in 1994 re-

ceived her B.A. in History at Duke University. She moved to California and entered the University of California, Davis, graduating in 2002 with a Ph.D. in Political Science. She joined the faculty of Roosevelt University, Chicago, as a professor of Political Science. She was additionally appointed Director of Joseph Loundy Human Rights Project. Her research in the fields of Environmental Justice and Human Rights resulted in the publication of four academic volumes and major recognition in her field. Bethany was a world traveler, annually taking her Roosevelt students on study tours to London and the Pacific Northwest, and solo research trips to Sydney, Australia and Uzbekistan. Due to her love of animals, especially cats, she earned a M.A. in Zoology from Miami University and gave countless hours to animal rescue projects. She spent summers as a volunteer Ranger at Yellowstone National Park, where she tracked wolves. Bethany loved California and spending time with family and friends. She was preceded in death by her husband, Louis Dudzik of Riverside and is survived by her parents, Richard and Elizabeth Barratt, of Monterey, California. Donations in her memory made be made to DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center (Wheaton), St. Chrysostom's Episcopal Church (Chicago) or Roosevelt University, (Chicago).

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Bensen, Betty J.

Betty J. Bensen passed away peacefully on September 28, 2026, surrounded by the family she loved so fiercely. Born in Chicago, Betty grew up above the Bob Inn tavern in Logan Square. She attended St. John Berchmans grammar school and graduated from Josephinum High School. She went on to build a life filled with family, hard work, travel, Elvis and laughter.

Betty met the love of her life, Don Bensen, at The Library Restaurant. They traveled together and shared a favorite memory of dancing on a Florida beach. She was a devoted mother and grandmother, an avid saver of newspaper clippings, and a volunteer..

She is survived by her children, Michael and Dennis Bender and Susan (Cervando) Chavez; grandchildren, Scarlett, Bella, Jack, and Jordan; and siblings, Mariann Gowen, DeDe (Mike) Unger, and Jimmy (Annie) Hanson. She was preceded in death by her parents, Terry and Harold Hanson; brother Terry Hanson; and beloved Don

Visitation Sunday, October 4, from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Friedrichs Funeral Home, 320 W. Central Rd., Mount Prospect. Visitation Monday, October 5, 10:00 AM until Funeral Mass 11:00 AM at St. Raymond de Penafort, Elmhurst Road (Route 83) and Lincoln Street, in Mt. Prospect. Interment to follow at Eden Cemetery.

Information call 847-255-7800 or www.friedrichsfh.com

Friedrichs

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Biedron, Chester A.

Chester A. Biedron, Loving husband of Carol Nelson Biedron, cherished father of Lori (Kevin) Early and Michael (Lisa) Biedron, beloved grandfather of Jonathan (Allison) Early, Melanie (Matthew) Major, Allison and Katherine Biedron, dear great-grandfather of Whitney Major, Elliott Early and Theodore Major, fond

brother of the late Robert Biedron and the late Gerald (Kathleen) Biedron. Funeral 9:00 a.m. Monday, October 12, 2026, from Modell Funeral Home, 7710 S. Cass Ave., Darien to St. Mary's Catholic Church, 105 Herrick Road, Riverside. Interment Private. Visitation Sunday, October 11, 2026, from 3:00 – 7:00 p.m. For funeral info: (630) 852-3595 or www.modelldarien.com

chicagotribune.com/deathnotice

Death Notices

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Braun, Zachary A

Zachary Adam Braun, age 48

Zachary Adam Braun, age 48

Loving husband of Linda nee Pendo.

Devoted father of Ari and Ethan. Dear

son of Paula (Michael Perlstein) and

the late Charles Braun. Fond son-in-

law of Lola Pendo. Beloved brother of

Law of Costa Pende. Discived brother of Jessy (Bobby) Ferdman and brother-in-law of Vital (Kimberly) Pendo. Adoring uncle of Charlie and Lucy Ferdman and Noah and Naomi Pendo. Zac will be missed by his extended family and many friends. Services were held. Memorial contributions may be made to Les Turner ALS Foundation. 5550 West Touhy Avenue, Skokie, Illinois 60077 www.lesturnerals.org. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals

Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com.

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[CHICAGO JEWISH FUNERALS] Czuba, Jeanne Meyers

Jeanne Meyers Czuba, age 81, a longtime resident of Naperville, IL, passed away peacefully on September 28, 2026. She was born on October 22, 1944 in Germantown, PA. Jeanne is survived by her loving sons, Jeffrey Czuba of Bangkok, Thailand, and Michael (Robyn) Czuba of Naperville, IL; and her cherished grandchildren,

Jessica and Jake Czuba, Riley and Joseph Czuba. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband, Gerald Czuba in 1993; her parents, Ernest and Mary Meyers; and her brother, Peter Meyers. Jeanne was proud to be a Registered Nurse and dedicated several years of her career to caring for others at Edward Hospital. She was an avid reader who could often be found enjoying a good book or working on a crossword puzzle. Jeanne had a special love for animals, especially cats, and her caring nature extended to all those around her. She was incredibly proud of her sons and grandchildren and treasured every moment she spent with them. She was the original "Baseball Mom," proudly cheering from the sidelines and supporting her family every step of the way. Jeanne's caring heart, love for her family, and warm spirit will be remembered and cherished by all who knew her. Memorial services are being planned for the future. A private family inurnment will be at Naperville Cemetery. Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services, Naperville, was entrusted with arrangements. For information call 630/355-0213 or visit www.friedrich-jones.com

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Desenis, Joanne Marie Grauer

Joanne Marie Grauer Desenis of Highland Park, IL, born to Gerhard and Marie Grauer in Cincinnati, OH, passed away on September 28, 2026, at the age of 95. Sister of Curt and David Grauer; widow of Philip Desenis; loving mother of Lynn (Rick) Swanson, Deb (Jim) Sackrison, Judy (Scott Peterson) Desenis; grandmother of Jennifer (Matthew) Geiger, Lauren (David) Tyda, Caitlin (Garin Habeshian) Sackrison, Annie (Rahul) Dey, and Meg Peterson; great grandmother of Makena Geiger and Nina Dey; and aunt to 10 nieces and nephews. Joanne graduated from Carleton College in 1953 where she majored in sociology. She married Phil in 1954 in Chicago, where they raised their family until they moved to Deerfield, IL in 1959. In 1968, Joanne obtained her teaching degree and taught kindergarten in Deerfield's School District 109, at both Cadwell and South Park Elementary Schools; a career she cherished for 23 years. Joanne loved children, friends, family, books, crossword puzzles, fresh air, rain, walking, golfing, knitting, volunteering, choir, piano, travel, chocolate, and ice cream. A private service will be held. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to Trinity UCC, 760 North Avenue, Deerfield, IL, 60015 or Door County Land Trust, PO Box 65, Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235.

KELLEY & SPALDING

FUNERAL HOME OF CREMATORY

(847) 831 - 4260

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Dunn, Marge nee Haggerty

Marge Dunn, 96, passed away peacefully on September 24, 2026, in Downers Grove, Illinois, surrounded by her family. Marjorie Ann Haggerty was born on April 22, 1930, to Yvo and Margaret Haggerty in Chicago, Illinois, joining her older brother, Ed, and sister, Virginia. The family moved to Downers Grove in 1934, and Marge spent most of her life there. She graduated from Downers Grove High School in 1948 and graduated in 1953 from Marycrest College in Davenport, Iowa and then became a teacher. Marge married Larry Dunn on June 30, 1956, at St. Joseph Church in Downers Grove and spent more than 50 loving years together until Larry's death in 2007. They raised their family in Downers Grove, where Marge was a homemaker, tutor, and substitute teacher until returning to teach full-time at St. Joseph when her youngest child started school. In 1988 Marge and Larry opened a printing shop in Clarendon Hills, enjoying many active years in the local business community. Marge enjoyed her final years living in the Oak Trace Retirement Community. Her family is especially grateful for the wonderful care and kindness shown to Marge by the Oak Trace staff. She will be remembered for her unwavering faith, kindness, sunny disposition, and strength. In addition to her parents, Marge was preceded in death by her husband of 50 years, Larry Dunn; her brother and sister-in-law, Ed and Jean Haggerty; and her sister and brother-in-law, Virginia and Paul Springer. Marge is survived by her children, Chris (Cathie) Dunn, Jackie (Mark) Stoll, Jeannie (Jim) Geselbracht, and Mary (Bob) Ploen; her 12 grandchildren, Larry, Michael, Maggie, and Jennifer Dunn; Megan, Mark (Josi), and Ryan Stoll; Sam (Samantha Yee) and Ben (Liv Ross) Geselbracht; and Gracie, Erin, and Brendan Ploen; and many nieces and nephews. A visitation will be held at Adams-Winterfield & Sullivan Funeral Home, 4343 Main St., Downers Grove on October 30th from 3 to 8 p.m. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 4801 Main St., Downers Grove on October 31st at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, memorials in memory of Marge Dunn may be made to the Endowment Fund of St. Joseph School, Downers Grove, or to Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation. Arrangements by Adams-Winterfield & Sullivan, (630)968-1000 or for complete obituary visit www.adamswinterfieldsullivan.com.

www.adamswinterfieldsullivan.com.

Adams Winterfield & Sullivan

aneral home and cremation services

Death Notices

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Ekstrom, Genevieve Lydia

Genevieve Lydia Ekstrom peacefully passed away at her home in Vero Beach, Florida and went to be with the Lord on May 28, 2026. Genny's mind was sharp and her wit was quick until the last days. Her body was just tired. Genny was born June 2, 1928, in Gray Eagle, Minnesota to August and

Adina Uecker Schwartz. As a young child, Genny and her parents moved to Chicago, IL where she was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran church and completed all 12 years of her public education. She went on to study art at the Chicago Art Institute and the American Academy of Art also in Chicago, IL. On Genny's first day of class at the Chicago Art Institute, she met Bonnie Haberer (Zak) and Norma Freeman (Garris). They became lifelong friends and sisters at heart. After completing her academic training, she worked as a Fashion Illustrator for several commercial art studios as well as illustrating for Sears & Roebuck and other Chicago retail stores. In the fall of 1962, Genny met the love of her life, Norris Ekstrom, and they were married May 25, 1963, in Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chicago, IL. They made their home in Milwaukee, WI, Lake Bluff, IL and retired to Vero Beach, Fl in 1988. While in Lake Bluff and Vero Beach Genny exhibited artwork in oil and acrylics annually at the Lake Forest Art League Festival and at the Artist Guild Gallery in Vero Beach. Genny was an impressionist style artist at heart, and her love of art, travel and studying were large parts of her life. Norris and Genny were able to travel the world together and created some of her fondest memories. She was preceded in death by her parents and her husband, Norris Ekstrom in 1998. She is survived by nieces, nephews, cousins and a host of friends. She led her life with generosity and her relationship with the Lord Jesus shaped her values. In Genny's words, "I have had a wonderful life."

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Feldman, Roberta "Bobbie

Roberta "Bobbie" Feldman, nee Moss, age 93.

Beloved wife of the late Ronald S. Feldman. Dear mother of Jim (Laura) Feldman, Susan (Paul) Silverman, and Jill Feldman (Arnie Brier). Proud grandmother of David (Rachel) Feldman, Robby (Emma) Feldman,

Kobby (Emma) Feldman, Jake (Steph) Silverman, Emma Silverman (Zach Elofir), Zoe Brier, and Ethan (Jonni) Brier. Adoring GG of Henry Feldman. Cherished sister of the late Dorothy (the late Alan) Press and sister-in-law of Judy (the late Jerry) Frank.

Bobbie will be remembered by all who knew her for her kindness, her warmth, and her genuine interest in everyone she met. She loved learning about people—their lives, their bios and their stories—and had a wonderful way of making everyone feel special.

She enjoyed playing mahjong, canasta, and Rummikub with family and friends—not the best player, but almost always the luckiest. And, Bobbie was lucky in life, especially to have shared almost 63 years of marriage with Ron. She also showed remarkable strength and resilience, surviving two open-heart surgeries and breast cancer while continuing to embrace life and the people she loved.

Above all, Bobbie was devoted to her family and friends. Some of her happiest moments were dancing at her grandchildren's weddings, surrounded by the family she cherished, and more recently, experiencing the joy of spending time with her first great-grandchild.

Service at noon with Shiva to follow until 5PM at Temple Am Shalom, 840 Vernon Avenue, Glencoe. Private interment at Rosehill Cemetery prior to the service. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to CJE SeniorLife, www.cje.net, or JourneyCare Hospice, www.journeycare.org. To attend the funeral livestream, please visit our website or https://amshalom.com/livestream/.

Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals

Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com.

CHICAGO JEWISH FUNERALS

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Death Notices

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Hall, Delos Frederick

Delos Frederick "Del" Hall, a photojournalist who documented many of the critical moments that defined the late 20th Century, died on September 10, 2026 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a week

Memorial Hospital, a week short of his 91st birthday. His wife of 57 years, Ginger, was at his side.

Born in New Orleans during the Depression, Del gleaned a fascination for film watching wartime newsreels and Frank Buck movies at downtown cinemas. After graduating from Jesuit High School in 1953 and serving in the U.S. Air Force, he landed a cameraman job for local broadcast news outlets.

Soon he found himself on the front lines of the Louisiana Civil Rights Movement, covering school desegregation in New Orleans, riots in Plaquemine, Klan rallies in Bogalusa (where he was chased by the Klan), and capturing colorful Bayou State political and cultural figures. He also worked on stories from Rome on Vatican II and Vietnam in 1965 on the growing war, rarities for local news outlets in that era.

In 1966, he accepted a position with CBS Network News and moved to Chicago, where he married Ginger Fann of Indiana. He soon had before his camera Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, among many others.

He quickly became one of the top tier camera-men at the network, collaborating with some of the most notable anchors and correspondents of the '60s-Walter Cronkite, Charles Kuralt, Dan Rather, and the reporters of 60 Minutes, and won an Emmy award for his work on, "On the Road with Charles Kuralt."

He often looked back on those days, explaining that as the first-generation in television news, photojournalists were charged with inventing ways to capture the stories that would make air. "We were making it up as we went along," he said. Camera techniques they invented are still standard today.

To list all the important events Del captured in his career would simply be a look back at history—the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the Kent State riots and National Guard shootings of war protestors, China when it was still a nation of horse-drawn wagons and bicycles, and on and on. He almost died in a helicopter crash covering the America's Cup race trials in 1974, and was beaten by police during the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, a bloody incident that earned him a mention by CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite and Emmy nomination for Outstanding Achievement by Individuals in Coverage of Special Events. He was also subpoenaed to testify at the "Chicago Seven" conspiracy trial.

After the helicopter crash, Del needed a new crew and Ginger filled the role. They traveled the world on stories for 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday Morning on stories about the Falkland War and Grenada. He never tired of it.

"Del's first love was his work," Ginger says. "I was a very close second."

In 1987, Del and Ginger left the road to found Del Hall Video. Del had always had an entrepreneurial spirit, and creating a production company that had all the bells and whistles needed in television production was a natural extension of his career. It became one of the 'go-to' production companies in the city.

Many years later, Professor Richard Campanella of Tulane University wrote Del's life story, The Photojournalism of Del Hall: New Orleans and Beyond, 1950s–2000s and said of him: "Del Hall stands as one of the few journalists able to chart their careers through the milestones and icons of the late twentieth century."

Veteran newsman and close friend, Bill Kurtis was quoted in the book. He wrote in part, "Del was part of an invisible band of brothers hidden behind a viewfinder who had the best seat in the house."

It's true that when Del Hall focused his eye behind the lens of a camera, he often captured what words couldn't. He was someone who fell in love with his craft and never let it down.

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He never stopped taking photographs.

Del is survived by his wife, Ginger, his sister, Sharon Lucido, and five children from a previous marriage: Del, Jeffrey and Mike Hall, Linda Lagasse and Dawn Guillot.

Cremation Society of Illinois

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Henry, Patricia Frances

Patricia Frances Henry (March 16, 1927-September 16, 2026), of Orland Park Illinois, passed away peacefully surrounded by her family. Patricia was born in Chicago, Illinois as the youngest of four children. Patricia fell in love with her husband Patrick and they were happily married for 60 years. Patricia, known as Nana, was incredibly close with her children and grandchildren. She will be dearly missed by her friends and family. A mass will be held on Friday October 23rd at 10am at Our Lady of the Woods Church with luncheon to follow. Internment at Holy Sepulcher Cemetery.

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Karas, Nicholas Adam

Nicholas Karas was loved by every person he ever met. Nick passed away on September 3, 2020, but his memory and his smile will live on in our hearts forever. He loved sports, music, movies, politics, shoes, family, and friends. Nick's life on Earth was far too short for a spirit so bright. We miss him every day. His legacy continues with his parents, Peter and Susan, his sister, Alexa, his Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins: Susan, James, Jacki, Gerald, Joanne, Amanda, Angela, Andy, Justin, Emma, Gwennie, Critter, Voula, Mark, George, Ashley, Adeline, and his soulmate, Anna. Read some of Nick's writing here: https://daxwiley.substack.com/.

Every life story

deserves to be told.

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Death Notices

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Kosinski, Theresa Rose

Death Notices

Theresa Rose Kosinski (nee Zalewski), age 95, beloved wife of the late Norbert Roman, loving mother of Margaret (Fred) LaCerra, Norbert Roman (Diane) Kosinski Jr., Jean (Lawrence) Piekos, Steven (Kathryn) Kosinski, and Laura (Larry) Pawlowski. Cherished Busia of 12; Natalie (Craig) Krsek, Michael (Tara) LaCerra, Lisa (Justen) Nelson, Nicholas (Vanessa) Piekos, Theresa Piekos, Laurie (Tim) Seiwert, Kristina (Arthur) Garceau, Melissa (Calvin) Dawson, Norbert Roman (Madison Michaylo) Kosinski III., Matthew (Alexandra) Pawlowski, and Lukas (Courtney McKenzie) Pawlowski; the late Joseph Piekos and Baby Raymond Kosinski. Proud great grandmother of 18 Austen, Avery, Olivia, Annabelle, Victoria, Benjamin, Liliana, Addison, Tyler, Elliott, Grace, Jillian, Quinten, McKenna, Charlotte, Dominic, Ryan, and Genevieve. Survived by half-sister Marilyn Eubanks. She is preceded in death by siblings Rose (Sr. M. Charitina). Adrian, Virginia, James, and Rita. Fond aunt of many nieces and nephews. Visitation Saturday Oct. 10, 2026 from 10:00–11:00 am at St. Elizabeth of the Trinity (formerly St. Tarcissus) Catholic Church 6020 W. Ardmore Ave. Chicago, Il. 60646. Mass to follow at 11:00 am. Inurnment St. Adalbert Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Czachor Funeral Home; For funeral info; 773-547-3840

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Kramm, Helga

December 26, 1931 – September 14, 2026

December 28, 1931 – September 14, 2026

Helga Kramm, born on December 26, 1931, in Germany, passed away on September 14, 2026. She lived a full and vibrant life, remembered by those who knew her as social, spirited, and truly joyful in the way she embraced each day.

At the age of 21, Helga made the courageous journey from Dortmund, Germany to Chicago, United States, where she built a life filled with family, friendship, and lasting memories. She celebrated her German heritage with pride while also embracing her life as a proud American.

Helga enjoyed life to the fullest and brought warmth, energy, and connection to the people around her. A strong and independent woman, she lived with determination, resilience, and grace, staying true to herself while cherishing her culture, her family, and her adopted country. Helga is survived by her son, Rainer; brother, Winfried; nephew, Andre; Andre's children, Aubrey, Aiden, and Sophie; and several extended family members in the United States and Germany.

Helga will be lovingly remembered for her joyful spirit, her pride in both her German roots and American life, and the many meaningful relationships she nurtured throughout her remarkable journey.

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Lyons, James R.

James R. Lyons, age 81, a recent resident of Naperville, IL, and formerly of Chicago and Forest Park, IL, passed away peacefully at his home on Friday, September 25, 2026. He was born on November 10, 1944, in Chicago, IL. Jim graduated from Fenwick High School, Oak Park, IL in 1963 and graduated from St. Leo University, Tampa, FL in 1967.

Services and interment will be private.

Arrangements by Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 44 South Mill Street, Naperville, IL 60540.

For a complete obituary, please visit www.friedrich-jones.com or call (630) 355-0213 for more information.

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Lyons, James R.

James R. Lyons, age 81, a recent resident of Naperville, IL, and formerly of Chicago and Forest Park, IL, passed away peacefully at his home on Friday, September 25, 2026. He was born on November 10, 1944, in Chicago, IL.

Services and interment will be private.

Arrangements by Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 44 South Mill Street, Naperville, IL 60540.

For a complete obituary, please visit www.friedrich-jones.com or call (630) 355-0213 for more information.

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Maiberger, Therese L

Therese L. Maiberger (nee Lowe) age 96 of Chicago, Illinois passed away peacefully on Tuesday, September 22, 2026.

Beloved wife of the late Stanley Maiberger; loving mother of Anne (Ron) Sojka, Mary (Dan) Kaplan, Jane (Kevin) Doherty and John Maiberger; dear grandmother of 12 and great grandmother of 6. In honor of Therese's memory, enjoy a good cup of hot tea and a murder mystery.

A memorial Mass will be held on Monday, October 5, 2026 10:00 a.m. at Our Lady of St. Germaine Church, 9711 S. Kolin Ave, Oak Lawn, IL 60453. Interment Private. In leiu of flowers, donation In Loving Memory of Therese Maiberger can be made to Mercy Circle Employee Christmas Fund, 3659 W 99th St, Chicago, IL 60655.

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McEwen, Janet F.

Janet F. McEwen (née Mathews) of Ingleside, Illinois, passed away peacefully on September 27, 2026 under the loving care of her family. She was born in Jackson, Michigan on March 9, 1950. She leaves behind Richard McEwen, her husband of 52 years, as well as their nine children and 54 grandchildren with 4 more on the way. She was preceded in death by her parents, Edward and Blanche Mathews, and her baby brother Joseph Edward. She is survived by her brother Nate (Nora) and her sisters Marie and Bernie Mathews. Janet graduated from Michigan Technological University with a B.S. in Mathematics in 1972 and taught math, science, and theology to hundreds of students. Janet's entire life was a gift of service to her family, her students, her Church, and her charities. Following her example of joyful service, Janet's family treasured the opportunity and privilege to care for her after the onset of Alzheimer's. Janet attended daily Mass, received the Eucharist, and prayed the Rosary every day. She remained infectiously happy, bringing joy everywhere she went. Visitation will be held at Strang Funeral Chapel, Grayslake, Illinois on Wednesday, October 7, 2026 from 3pm until 8pm; Holy Rosary 7pm. The Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Bede Catholic Church in Ingleside, Illinois at 10am on October 8, 2026. In lieu of flowers, contributions to support the Willows Academy Endowment Fund or Lake County Right to Life would be greatly appreciated.

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Nosek, Frank

Frank Erling Nosek, 85, a Chicago native and resident of Franklin Park for 57 years since 1969, passed away peacefully on Sunday, September 27, 2026. His devoted wife of 62 years and his two adoring daughters were at his side as he went to his eternal rest.

Frank was born in Chicago and was the son of the late Guldborg Myhre and the elder Frank Nosek. In addition to his parents, Frank's aunt and uncle, the late Dorothy and Svend Jorgensen, were important parental figures in Frank's life.

Though he was an imposing presence, Frank was known by his kind and gentle demeanor. Frank volunteered throughout his life at WTTW, as a Boy Scout leader, an election judge, and a treasurer for the Men's Club at St. Maria Goretti. He volunteered for 15 years at Gottlieb Hospital in the lab and making blankets for patients. Frank also loved camping, dancing, travel, his garden, and his stamp and record collections, sharing these experiences with his many true friends. Most of all he loved his wife, his children and his grandchildren, who now carry forward his legacy of kindness and humility.

Frank is survived by his wife Beverly (Wussow) of Franklin Park. He is also survived by his son Gregory of Tempe, AZ, and daughters Lisa of Chicago and Dionne of Los Angeles, CA, his sons-in-law Chris Jensen and Mike Mulvihill and his grandchildren Nate Nosek-Mulvihill and Harper Nosek-Mulvihill.

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Pieczynski, Diane Marie

Diane Marie Pieczynski, nee Krynicki, age 87, of Frankfort, born April 24,1939. Beloved wife, of 64 years, to the late Edward J. Pieczynski; mother of Dennis Pieczynski, Denise (Larry) Bender and Edith (Timothy) Lutz; grandmother of Kyle (Erin) Pieczynski, Major Steven (Kelsey) Pieczynski, Captain Timothy (Erica) Lutz and 1st Lieutenant Kirsten Lutz; daughter of the late John F. and Agnes Krynicki, nee Grzybowski; sister of Richard (Jean) Krynicki, Patricia (Daniel) Hnatt, Ronald (Doris) Krynicki, Evelyn (John) Tobinski, Geraldine (Robert) Relinski and Kathleen (Tom) Niksic. Many cousins, nieces, and nephews also survive; best friend of Helen Rose Kobitta.

Past member of Annunciata Parish, where she served as a school board member. Member of Saint Boniface Parish, where she served as Eucharistic Minister, President and a member of Women's Club. She also served as President of the Parish Council for 8 years. In Monee, she was appointed to the Planning and Zoning Board for IO years, before becoming elected as Trustee in the Village of Monee for 2 terms.

Family will receive family and friends Tuesday, October 6, 2026 from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Kurtz Memorial Chapel Frankfort, 65 Old Frankfort Way, Frankfort, IL 60423. Prayers in the funeral home chapel Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 9:30 AM to St. Anthony Catholic Church, 7659 W. Sauk Trail, Frankfort, IL for Mass of Christian Burial 10:00 AM.

In lieu flowers donations to Saint Jude Children Hospital

Interment Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, Elwood, IL.

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Pildes, Dr. Robert B.

Dr. Robert B. Pildes passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 98 and 11/12ths. Bob is survived by his wife Rosita, to whom he was happily married for 73 years, his son Richard (Ashley Berner) and daughter Ellyn (John Bank), as well as three grandchildren, Nikki Bank (Drew Lewis) Kara Bank (Joe Dobell), Ryan

Pildes Eliasberg, and one great grandson, Caleb Bank-Lewis. His sister Evelyn (Philip) Warren and her husband pre-deceased him.

Bob was a renowned obstetrician and gynecologist in private practice. He specialized in fertility treatment and cancer surgery. He was one of the early clinical researchers who helped establish Clomid as a successful treatment for infertility in women, including publishing landmark studies that were critical in the FDA's approval of the drug in 1967 and its widespread clinical use. At the time, infertility treatments were limited. He was considered a meticulous surgeon with tremendous patience and technical skill. His physical stamina was extraordinary; he could be up all night with deliveries, then perform complex surgery during the day. He served on staff at Mount Sinai and Edgewater Hospitals and later was a founding staff member at Gottlieb Hospital. His patients and office staff adored him. He delivered the children of many family members, including his own granddaughter.

Bob came from humble origins. Born on the west side of Chicago to parents who immigrated from Latvia and Poland, his father was a tailor. Being drafted into the military one semester into college changed his life in two momentous ways. First, Bob had a scientific mind, loved animals and nature, and had planned to be a zoologist. But a sergeant convinced him he should turn his scientific interest toward an area that would help people by going into medicine.

Second, being in the military delayed his college years, which enabled him to meet the love of his life, Rosita, in a zoology class at the University of Illinois/Champagne Urbana. They became lab and study partners, while enjoying post-study sessions with malted shakes. They married one week before medical school graduation.

Never in a bad mood, Bob had an infinite capacity to enjoy life and unlimited curiosity. He began collecting stamps at the age of eight and eventually became an award-winning philatelist best known for his extensive collection and specialized expertise on Israeli philately. He and Rosita traveled and collected art from around the world, with Bob having a particular interest in African sculpture. He consumed several newspapers and journals regularly and remained deeply engaged in politics and world affairs until the very end. He was an extremely generous, warm, and optimistic soul who remained deeply devoted to friends, colleagues, and extended family.

Service will be held on Monday, October 5, 2026, at 12 noon at Chicago Jewish Funerals, 8851 Skokie Blvd. (at Niles Center Road), Skokie. Interment Westlawn Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the World Wildlife Fund, the Society of Israel Philatelists, and Birthright Israel. To attend the livestream, please visit our website. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals, 847.229.8822. www.cifinfo.com

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[Death Notices] Pleines, Richard "Rick"

Richard F. "Rick" Pleines 71, loving father of Fran (Dave Ekins) Pleines, and the late Rose Pleines-Zych; dearest friend of Suzanne Honda; fond brother of John (Liz), Ed (Nancy), Thomas (Kathleen), and Patricia DaValle; fond uncle of Kate, J.R., Chrissy, Mike, and Meghan; fond great uncle of many. He was preceded in death by his parents Edward and Rita Pleines. Visitation Wednesday from 4pm until 8pm at Skaja Terrace Funeral Home 7812 N. Milwaukee Ave. Niles. Funeral Thursday 9:15am to St. Juliana Church for 10am Mass. Interment Maryhill Cemetery. Funeral info 847-966-7302 or www.skajafuneralhomes.com

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Pokres, Ronald

Ronald Pokres, age 95. Son of the late Irene and Walter Pokres, beloved husband of Shyrlee Schor, Ex-husband of the late Charlene Seligson, devoted father of Gary Pokres and Steven Pokres, loving stepfather of Debbie (John) Plested and Pam (Steve) Zohn. Adored Papa of Matt (Erin), Jeff (Ana), Brian (Katie), Samantha (the late James) and Ben (Ashley). Great Papa of 9. "Papa-Roni" will be missed by family and friends who loved him dearly. In lieu of flowers, please make donations in his name to the charity of your choice.

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Rubald, Cyrenus M. "Cy"

Cyrenus M. "Cy" Rubald, age 80, Vietnam War Era U.S. Army veteran, a resident of Naperville, IL since 1974, formerly of St. Cloud, MN, passed May on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, at Deavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville, He was born on September 26, 1946, in St. Cloud, MN.

Arrangements by Friedrich-Jones Funeral Home & Cremation Services, 44 S. Mill St., Naperville, IL 60540.

For service times and a complete obituary, please visit www.friedrich-jones.com or call (630) 355-0213 for more information.

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Schuessler, Richard Dale

Richard Dale Schuessler passed away peacefully on May 25 at age 83 at home in Chicago. He was born in 1942 on the northwest side. His father, Walter, was the president of Schuessler Knitting Mills, a family-owned textile factory that started as a small retail shop near Logan Square. His mother, Lois, was a

homemaker.

After graduating from New Trier High School, Denison University (where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa) and the University of Chicago Business School, Richard joined the family business, becoming director of sales and then president. An avid environmentalist, he was an eager promoter of new products like Eco-Raggs yarn (made from recycled plastic bottles) and helped direct some profits to wildlife restoration. He was also on the board of the local YMCA.

Richard was known for dad jokes, boundless energy and irrepressible curiosity about what lay around the next corner. One of his favorite sayings, especially to bored children: "Be careful, you might learn something." A life-long lover of the outdoors, he treasured memories of youthful summers at Camp Owakonze and canoe trips on the Boundary Waters.

After retiring, he threw his energy into home projects, volunteer work and travel. He served on the board at Lambs Farm, a residential facility for disabled adults, and HighSight, an educational and mentoring organization. He relished introducing visitors to his beloved home city as a volunteer with Chicago Greeters.

Richard is survived by his wife Bonnie; his daughters Cynthia, Jennifer and Heidi; two grandchildren, Max and Gannon; and his brother, Robert.

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Schwartz, Jane Frances

Jane Frances Schwartz, 92, passed peacefully on September 19, 2026. Beloved wife for 51 years of the late Charles A. Schwartz, Jane is survived by her four daughters, Susan Schwartz, Jennifer Geldermann, Christine (Christopher) Madden and Jeannine (Clair Fleshner) Rickard. She is the aunt of Michele (John) Garvey. She

was a proud and loving grandmother of John (Elizabeth) Geldermann, Sean Madden, Eric (Natalie) Geldermann, Ginger (Daniel) Pullega, Ashley (Edward) Rickard-Code, Nicole Rickard and Bradford (Aubrey) Rickard. She adored her seven great grandchildren, Viola Geldermann, Fox Geldermann, Richard Pullega, Anthony Pullega, Charlie Clare Geldermann, Emma Jane Geldermann, and Mikayla Geldermann. Visitation will be held on Friday, October 30th, at 9:00 am, followed by a Funeral Mass at 10 am, at Saint Joan of Arc Church, 3653 Lyons Street, Evanston, IL 60203. Internment immediately following at All Saints Cemetery, Des Plaines, Illinois. Memorial donations may be made to Misericordia Home, 6300 N. Ridge Ave., Chicago, IL 60660 or Mercy Home for Boys & Girls, 1140 W. Jackson Blvd., Chicago, IL 60607.

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Shea, Mary Gruenheck

Mary Gruenheck Shea was born Oct 8, 1941 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. She is predeceased by her parents, John Felix Gruenheck and Mildred Eads Gruenheck, her sisters Martha Kelly and Katharine Weinberg, and her husband Charles M. Shea.

Mary graduated in 1966 from Catholic University in

Washington D.C with a BA and MSW. There, she met Charlie, a young lawyer whose career brought them to Chicago where she served as a social worker in Cabrini Green.

The couple resided in Lincoln Park where she was an active leader in the Old Town Art Fair. Mary served as a docent for 40 years at the Oriental Institute (ISAC) at University of Chicago and achieved an MA.

Mary was a member of the University of Chicago Women's Board, The Fortnightly of Chicago, and The Arts Club of Chicago. Mary was active at the Art Institute of Chicago as a member of The Textile Society, the Classical Art Society and The Asian Arts Council.

Mary is survived by her sisters Susan Taponier, Kristine Porter and Ruth Singer (John), her children Maura, Charles and Julia (Nathan) Hilmer, her nieces and nephews, and her three adoring grandchildren.

A devoted mother, aunt, grandmother and friend to many, she will be deeply missed.

A memorial celebration will be scheduled. In lieu of flowers, memorials and blood donations may be made in her honor to Kellogg Cancer Center at Endeavor. Info: donnellanfuneral.com or (847)675-1990.

Death Notices

Straus, Laurence Larry

Larry Straus born April 20th, 1936, lived his 90 years with a zest for life, and a knack for turning everything he touched to gold. His early years on The South Side of Chicago were most remembered by those who knew him for his Football days being the City Wide Scoring Champion at Harvard School For Boys in Hyde

Park. Larry went on to attend the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania where he became proud member of the Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) Fraternity. Larry worked in The Steel Business, starting out at Century Steel before venturing out on his own to form The Jame Steel Corporation soon followed by The Mars Steel Corporation, with a team of dynamic partners. In 1961he met his bride to be Sandra Fiedler of Omaha Nebraska. A marriage that would last fifteen years, and which gave them two beautiful children, Cynthia Lynn Straus and William Spencer Straus. They parted amicably. In 1980 Larry met Caryn Gottlieb. They fell deeply in love, married and he spent the remaining years of his life together in a blessed marriage. Caryn came with a big family, Harry Gottlieb, Anne Gottlieb and Tom Gottlieb, along with sister-in-law Sandy Francis and her husband Mitch Francis. Grandchildren followed, his Granddaughter Junie Straus and two step-grandsons Louis Fowler Gottlieb and Moses Fowler Gottlieb. He is survived by all, including two nephew's, his brother's sons, Jon Straus and Peter Straus. Larry was a kind, loving man. A man whom many looked up to, admired and adored. His life came to an end on September 23rd, 2026 at the age of 90. He outlived most of his contemporaries, including his beloved brother, Stephen Straus. Larry will be greatly missed. To know him was to love him. Service and Interment were held. Donations in Larry's name can be made to Everytown for Gun Safety www.everytown.org. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com.

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[CHICAGO JEWISH FUNERALS] Vickrey, Christopher Wilmont

Chicago Tribune Death Notices

Chicago Tribune extends our condolences to the families and loved ones of those who have passed.