Beacon

Since there is no photography allowed at Dia: Beacon, I present a sea gull, in Beacon.

Indian Summer (November)

Sunset off of Red Hook, Sunday evening.

NYC Marathon at 40

Runners hit the 25-mile mark in Central Park during the 40th New York City Marathon on Sunday.

The Way we Live Now

An inflatable union rat on 7th Avenue in Chelsea; a Michael Jackson impersonator warms up in Union Square; anti-incumbent sentiment on 4th Street in the East Village.

Scenes from Eliot Bridge

A spectator winds her way through the treacherous underpass of the Eliot Bridge during a windy, wet and cold Head of the Charles Sunday in Boston.

A sinking Tufts Medical School umbrella, recently launched from the mittened hands of Anne Schoknecht in an unexpected gust from atop the Eliot Bridge, thankfully fell to the water in between waves of lightweight single scullers.

Deutscher Ruder Verband, the German National Team, power through the final mile of the course. The Germans placed sixth, six seconds back from Brown and 22 seconds behind Championship Eight winners Tideway Scullers.

Brown Men's Crew Head Coach Paul Cooke leads his rowers across Eliot Bridge from the VFW building doubling as Brown's hospitality tent, above, to launch their boats for the Championship Eights. An hour later, Bruno rowers were sprinting back across Eliot to the VFW in a driving snow. Brown boats finished fifth, thirteenth, fourteenth and thirtieth in the event.

Open House NY

Light shines through an inlay in an second floor window of the Morris-Jumel mansion, the oldest house in Manhattan on Sunday afternoon in Washington Heights.

Among other notable facts about the home, it was used as General George Washington's temporary headquarters after his army lost the Battle of Long Island in 1776. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and John Quincy Adams all attended dinners at the home at some point.

Yassky Can

On Tuesday evening, New York City Councilmember David Yassky basked in the applause at an election-night party near Times Square to celebrate his second-place finish behind fellow Councilmember John Liu in the Democratic primary for Comptroller.

With 100 percent of the vote counted, unofficial results showed that Mr. Liu had captured 38 percent of the vote, just short of the 40 percent he needed to win outright. Mr. Yassky took 30 percent, and Councilwoman Melinda R. Katz of Queens finished third, with 20 percent. David I. Weprin, a councilman from Queens, was fourth.

Yassky and Liu will face each other in a run-off to be held September 29th.

Town Hall

New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane waves goodbye to a constituent following a Town Hall meeting at The Duke on 42nd Street Tuesday evening in Manhattan. Senator Duane addressed a range of issues including the Senate stalemate, the road ahead for the Senate and discussed dozens of topics ranging from federal health care legislation to reform of the juvenile justice system to tenant reform.

The Timberman

Controlled chaos, kneed heads and other slippage reign in the wetsuit stripping area a the Timberman Half-Ironman Triathlon, Lake Winnipesaukee, NH, August 23rd.

Some random guy who happened to land in the focus of my panning preparation for Karen. Unfortunately, his shot was much better.

Dominating around the turn of her first six plus mile loop, my sister Karen.

And that's what it feels like to finish that race in heat and humidity. An hour and two IV bags later, everyone was back to normal.

Bleecker Street, August 14th, 5:30 p.m.

Who is that well-dressed man?

Gay Pride Commemorates Stonewall@40

Scenes and sights from the warm and sunny annual Gay Pride Parade at which the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion was celebrated. Senator Thomas K. Duane, New York's only openly gay Senator, waved and walked his way down Fifth Avenue and into the Village for his, approximately, 34th or 35th time.

The Newlyweds

From embracing each other to welcoming the world, the newest Kangs, Kris and Catherine. Brooklyn Bridge, February 7th, and Willseyville, New York, June 13th.

Scenes from a Wedding

Soon to be married, Catherine descends the stairs toward her wedding ceremony in Wilseywille, New York, outside of Ithaca, on June 13th.

Kris, and his father, watch, or try to, as Catherine is escorted by her father to the altar.

The newlyweds wait to greet their friends and family for the first time as Mr. and Mrs. Kang.

The groom, his brother and his new wife squeeze in a plate of brisket between conversations.

Marriage Equality

Cast members of the Broadway show "Hair" rallied a crowd of thousands with a rendition of "Aquarius" on Sunday on the Avenue of the Americas from West 44th Street and points north in support of marriage equality in New York State.

Signage at the event was a mixture of the political and personal. In the month since Governor David Paterson introduced the marriage equality program bill the Assembly passed the bill by a margin of 89-52, a larger margin than when it passed two years ago.

New York State Senator Thomas K. Duane, the sponsor of the marriage equality program bill in the Senate, was the first politician to address the rally. With just 18 days left in this year's legislative session, Duane urged supporters to reach out to relatives and friends and encourage them to contact their Senators to let them know that they are in favor of marriage equality in New York. "It's not if, it's when," Duane chanted with the crowd.

Governor David Paterson and Senator Duane embrace after Paterson addressed the Broadway Impact rally. “We’re in a race right now in New York,” the governor told the crowd. “The time for justice, the time for equality, the time for equal rights can never be any more urgent than right now.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was introduced by members of Broadway Impact organizers at Sunday's rally. “We’ve got to put the pressure on them and not take any double talk for an answer,” he said. “We won’t stop until we put a bill on the governor’s desk.”

No Need for a Doggie Bag

Winston the dog joins his owners for a little framboise at Il Bagatto on East 2nd Street on the first balmy night of spring in New York City.

Sunday in Williamsburg

Thousands of members of the Jewish community came on foot and by car to receive free bags of Kosher for Passover potatoes, onions and soda water provided by the Satmar Hasidic movement on Kent Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon.

Passover, aka the Feast without Yeast, celebrates God sparing the Israelites when he killed the first born of Egypt followed by the Jewish peoples' Biblical exodus from slavery. The holiday begins on Wednesday evening and ends on April 15th

Postcard Night

Doree Shafrir, left, and Jessica Grose, authors of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home welcomed guests at their book launch party Tuesday night at the Slipper Room in the Lower East Side with promises of mom-tini's and cupcakes. The book, which is conveniently on sale in time for Mother's Day, is a collection of contributions from their website Postcards from Yo Momma.

A sample submission:

That’s great about your new job, I’m so proud of you babygirl! So you know what I was thinking?…you live in the Bronx and work in Manhattan and Derek Jeter lives in Manhattan and works in the Bronx. You should give him a call & get together.

Sundays for Murphy

A Sunday spent canvassing near Troy, New York, on roads such as Auclair Way, top, ended at the Country View Diner where the Democratic candidate for New York's 20th Congressional District, Scott Murphy, bottom left, joined forces on the campaign trail with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand for the seat that she vacated in January. The special election, which pits Murphy against Republican Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, will be held Tuesday, March 31st.

The race has taken the district from relative obscurity to national prominence as politicians and pundits on both sides of the aisle have treated the contest as a referendum on President Barack Obama's policies to date, including his handling of the nation's economic recovery. Murphy has battled back from 12 points behind in the polls to take a lead of 4 percentage points in a poll released on Friday by Siena College. Each candidate has raised more than $1 million to supplement the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by national political action committees and party campaign committees on the race.

Fire on Avenue B

Fire Department of New York Battallion Chief Clifford calls in instructions as firefighters battle a blaze on Avenue B between East 2nd and 3rd Streets Thursday afternoon.

A firefighter breaks the window of the apartment in which the blaze originated.

The blaze at 28 Avenue B started a little before 2 p.m. on Thursday and was under control within minutes of fire personnel arriving on the scene.

St. Patrick's Parade on a Fine Day

A member of the Amityville, New York, American Legion Pipe Band laughs in the staging area on 45th Street before the start of the St. Patrick's Day Parade on Tuesday.

A little drumming practice before heading up Fifth Avenue.

With the size of the parade, one would assume that any and all law enforcement are Irish or simply enjoy marching in parades.

Patch Adams makes a brief stop at 49th and Fifth.

A quick check-in to tithe at St. Patrick's Cathedral on 51st and Fifth.

He was wondering where all his buddies were to take his picture with the drunken Marymount College girls.

Where do these guys come from? I saw more handlebar mustaches today than I've seen in 9 months in New York.

My Interpretation of A Freshman at NYU's East Village-Inspired Portfolio

A man, whose name I did not get, gazes down 23rd Street. Moody, jarring.

"Inspiration is everywhere," I thought as I spotted a garbage can outside of Stromboli Pizza on St. Marks and 1st Avenue. "You just need to know where to find it."

This color combination reminds us all of the movie "The Sixth Sense." Foreboding, patterned.

The doorway to Dolphin Gym on 2nd Street and Avenue B is a veritable menagerie of messages. New York, the home of thousands of unpaid guerilla graphic artists.

Reminds me of the grittiness of early James Nachtwey...if Nachtwey covered 1st graders from PS 364, Sixth Street and Avenue B.

February 14th, One Year Later

One year ago, I covered the shootings at Northern Illinois University, an event that was a defining moment in my journalism career. Certain truths emerged from that day: I learned that I could do my job under pressure, I learned that the closer a journalist was to death the more notoriety their work would receive and I learned that I had seen all that I could ever want to see of human tragedy on this scale.

This past weekend, I decided to come back to DeKalb to see friends and former co-workers and to attend some of the ceremonies in remembrance of the five students who lost their lives. These pictures are by me as an observer, someone who wished only to be there. But, I found myself unable to not 'cover' the event, perhaps because it still allows me to have that distance of the lens. It is something with which I continue to grapple.

Flowers in the door of Cole Hall, the site of the shooting.

Similar to the makeshift crosses that sprang up near Cole Hall last year, five crosses were mounted for people to leave flowers and notes near the site of the shooting.

The media attention, though far from what it was last year, remained substantial.

Members of the family of Daniel Parmenter, one of five students who lost his life on February 14th, laid a wreath at a ceremony at the site of a planned Memorial Garden.

Northern Illinois University President John Peters walked among the five memorials after the wreath laying ceremony.

Hundreds filed silently past the memorial after the ceremony on Saturday afternoon.

Happy Valentines Day

Sunday to Thursday; NYC

So f-ing hip it hurts. Bowery and Houston, Sunday.


Ah, the joy of being married in taffeta. Under the Brooklyn Bridge, Saturday.

Lady Liberty, from afar.

Winter Jam NYC. East River Park, Thursday.

Asymmetrical Demonstrating

A pair of demonstrators advocating for peace, top, between Palestinians and Israelis stood alone on Third Avenue in New York City on Sunday morning before a rally in support of Israel. A demonstrator at a We Stand With Israel rally on 42nd Street fastened an Israeli flag to a metal barrier during the event.

Similar rallies were held around the country in connection to the Week of Solidarity across North America. Nearly 10,000 activists came together to show solidarity with the people of Israel, sympathy for all people who are hurt and in harm's way, and hope for a solid cease-fire, which will end the rocket attacks on the people of southern Israel and ultimately pave the way for peace in the future.

Picture Brands

Is this my brand?

On Valentine's Day, a former student opened fire in a Northern Illinois University classroom, killing five students, injuring sixteen and eventually taking his own life. I was on campus when it happened. This was my lightning strike, my Eddie Adams moment, albeit on a much smaller stage. My paper, the Daily Chronicle in DeKalb, Ill., was inundated with entreaties from media outlets wanting to feed off of our coverage. I kept on working for the next few days posting pictures and contemplating how my coverage of one tragic event would be more well known than the combined popularity of a thousand county fairs. It appeared that my brand was tending toward the tragic (I'd almost been crushed by a monster truck in August).

Photographers at newspapers this size are generalists--meant to cover anything and everything and do it quickly and well. But as a photographer and a writer in today's multimedia-crazed newspaper business, being good at everything sometimes means that you're good for nothing. As the furor died down from the NIU shootings, I confronted the fact that perhaps my brush with exposure had not furthered my journalism brand as much as I had imagined.

For all intents and purposes, a photographer's portfolio Web site is their brand. These sites run the gamut (In a relative sense as most photographers are not programmers as well) from accomplished shooters who worked their way to the world's hotspots largely without help from a major newspaper such as Chris Hondros to my former colleague Adam Gerik's proto-confessional photo blog. But if our brand is our Web site only, then it would seem to follow that the top 10 results for "war photographer" or "freelance photographer LA" could essentially corner the market. Metadata trumps hard work and killer documentary skills.

But that would be a fallacy. For all the change that the Internet has brought to photography, it has not changed certain universal truths. Scott Strazzante is a staff photographer at the Chicago Tribune. A past winner of the Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2000, Strazzante has worked his way up the ladder by being a hard worker and a good marketer. Though he has been shooting since 1987, he does not yet have a portfolio Web site of his own. Despite this, his recently-published series on the encroachment of sprawl into rural Illinois took off via a convergence of buzz on listserves such as APAD and webzines such as PDN with the physical pages of the Trib and National Geographic.

"The one thing that the Web has done is devalued photographers. Now magazines go into Flickr and steal photos. Even though there are more outlets, it has really handicapped photographers because there's much more supply than demand," Strazzante said. "The top one percent will be fine. The kind of middle-tier photographers who haven't quite found their voice yet, they're the ones who are really going to suffer. It's almost become like society in general where it's going to be a greater divide between the rich and the poor. It's going to either be the super-talented or the people who are willing to give away their work for free."

Strazzante cites Vincent Laforet as an example of a photographer who has branded himself successfully. "He started out basically a sports photographer," Strazzante said. "Now, if anyone at a huge publication in America wants an aerial style, Vincent is it. He's made his name with creative aerial photography. He's now created a niche where he is the guy to go to for aerial photography. He's done that by being a great businessman in addition to being a great shooter."

In today's newspaper market, it sometimes feels as if the chances are better that you'll be laid off than receive a decent-sized raise. David Zentz is a 29-year-old photojournalist at the Peoria Journal Star with an impressive track record of high-profile internships and clip-contest wins under his belt. In a good to fair market, he would likely be at a major metropolitan daily at this stage of his career. But as it is, he has been bought out by the new owners of his newspaper, GateHouse Media, who have been slashing expenses through voluntary buyouts across its properties since purchasing nine Copley properties last year.

Don't cry for Zentz, he has a plan. Los Angeles beckons and a career in freelance commercial and editorial photography awaits. The only problem? How to create the DZ brand.

"No one should ever market themselves as a generalist because it devalues your voice," Zentz said. "I can shoot everything, but I want clients to know what my interests are so I promote myself and market as more of a specialist in documentary and hard news. I'm trying to figure out how to create multiple brands."

"You can look at photo magazines you see Paolo Pellgrin, Alex Webb. You can see their stuff and recognize it right away or at least say it looks like something he would have shot. People do work over years to consolidate their style and concentrate their portfolio to a specific thing and that will bring them more work."

Style then, is brand. Chris Bartlett knows that first hand. Bartlett has been shooting still life in the fashion and beauty world for 20 years, primarily editorial and some commercial work.

"There was a much wider middle ground in which to swim and there was a greater array of photographers who were not particularly hugely distinguishable from each other who were all capable professional photographers," Bartlett said. "To take a nice picture took more skill than it does now. What has happened is that the bottom has risen up because it's easier to come up with a competent photograph. The middle area, where people branded themselves but not really distinctly, that marketplace is sort of eroding and people with a combination of very clear style and brand plus a good business sense are carving out a little niche for themselves."

The practical applications of this hits right where it hurts. Bartlett recently did an estimate for a job he is shooting next week based on previous work he had done for the client 10 years ago. They came back and said they wanted his price to be about 60 percent less than his bid. His competition? The in-house digital studio.

"The rub here is that the art director wants me to do it because he likes the way I treat the subject matter but the money people are saying this is what we're going to be," he said. "It's up to me to compromise my rate to get the job or stand my ground and say 'I won't do it for less than that.' It won't be done to the level it would be done with my original estimate because I have to cover more ground in less amount of time to make money. That is a pretty familiar scenario."

The irony is that there is a lot more potential for money because of the wider audience, but everyone is expecting that work to be done for free. In order to compete for the jobs that pay good money, strong work is key. When you mention a photographer's name, Annie Lebowitz or Robert Capa to use two examples, an image has to pop into your head. People need to know that if they're spending the money, they're getting a certain treatment.

So, then, is my one picture that made it around the world my brand? I tend to believe that it's not. For one, few if any photojournalists have been hired based on one picture. Iconic images can catapult careers, but being good in today's newspaper, and commercial, markets doesn't always mean that you'll get the job. Thus the paradox of being a more attractive job candidate when you're cheaper and younger than when you're better and more seasoned. Bottom line concerns aren't making brands less relevant, but they are making most photographers' stake less valuable.

Eric Sumberg recently left the Daily Chronicle to pursue other interests in New York City. Content originally posted on www.noahbrier.com

Memorial Day in Northern Illinois

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb American Legion Post 66 Commander John Lahuta spoke to a gathered crowd of hundreds on the lawn of the Ellwood House in DeKalb after Saturday's Memorial Day Parade.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Members of the DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice marched in DeKalb's Memorial Day parade for the third year carrying photographs of the 166 Illinois service men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. "It's an effort to memorialize all the sacrifice of human life," said co-coordinator Dan Kenney, second from right.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore native and active-duty U.S. Army solder Chris Isabel, left, and Sycamore Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5768 Gerry Drake carry the colors at the start of Sycamore's Memorial Day Parade along California Street on Monday morning.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kaleb White, 3, of Sycamore, kicks up some water with his shoes before the start of Sycamore's Memorial Day Parade Monday morning on California Street.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kaitlyn Proulx, 6, left, and Maggie Nanfria, 6, of Daisy Troop 463 of St. Mary's School in Sycamore pose for a photograph before marching in Sycamore's Memorial Day Parade Monday morning in Sycamore.

It's Here

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Andrew Moore, 26, fills up his Volkswagen Jetta Sunday at Sebby’s University Shell on West Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. For Moore, a trip to the pump lately has meant taking a hard look at the financial feasibility of his lifestyle. “I did decide to sell my car because I can’t afford to pay for gas and insurance,” he said.

Four Dollar Gas

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

With each monetary milestone, we shake our heads. Two dollars for a gallon of gas? Now three? Gas costs four dollars?

It seems like every day brings a new report of the high cost of a barrel of light, sweet crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In mid-February, the cost per barrel broke $100. The price one year ago was roughly half of what it is now, $132.19 per barrel. Where it will end - determined by demand, supply concerns, a weak dollar and numerous other factors - is a matter of intense speculation on Wall Street and in dining rooms and board rooms across the country.

“People think we're making a lot of money, but they have to realize we're getting charged a lot also,” said Josh Scalia, an employee at Sebby's University Shell on West Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. “People aren't buying gas anymore. They can't afford it. Not to mention that half of DeKalb goes home every summer.”

An informal survey of regular unleaded gas prices in the DeKalb area Sunday revealed a range from $3.98, at the Clark gas station on DeKalb Avenue, to $4.05, at Sebby's and the Marathon station one block west at Pearl Street.

Linda Bobowski of Des Plaines pulled into Sebby's on Sunday in a Chevy Suburban, her husband's car. She only needed to put a few dollars' worth of gas in the vehicle to make it to the Pacific Pride station on Peace Road, but even with the $2.98 per gallon E85 blend there - 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline - she expected to spend $75 to fill up.

“I try to combine trips so I'm not making so many,” Bobowski said. “Most of the time I drive my car that's a little more fuel efficient.”

Andrew Moore is an undergraduate at Northern Illinois University who paid $50.28 for 12.3 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline Sunday afternoon at Sebby's. Moore works part-time in Elburn at a greenhouse, a job he has held for a number of years.

“I end up spending half of my paycheck to get to work and back,” Moore said, estimating he spends $75 each week on fuel. “With gas and everything it ends up being less than minimum wage.”

His solution? Sell the Volkswagen Jetta he purchased new in 2004 for a car with lower insurance payments and better fuel efficiency. His current car gets about 26-30 miles per gallon, which he estimates costs him about $4 to drive 30 miles. Though filling up is costly, Moore doesn't expect prices to go down soon.

“With urban sprawl and everything, I don't think it's going anywhere,” he said.

Knockout

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore's Krista Koeplin (left) absorbs an elbow to the face from Hononegah's Taylor Scott in the second half of the Spartans' 2-0 loss to the Indians in the IHSA Class 2A Freeport Sectional Final Thursday evening in Freeport.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore goalie Sarah Fischer, left, readies for a shot on goal as Spartan defeners Tory Tilton (14) and Emily Hamden (9) tie up Hononegah's Katie Fluegel (8) in the second half of the Spartans' 0-2 loss to the Indians in the IHSA Class 2A Freeport Sectional final Thursday evening in Freeport.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG There were smiles but also tears on the faces of Spartan players, from left, Nici Newquist, Tori Tilton, and Lauren Hawkins at the end of Thursday evening's match. Sycamore ends the season 16-5-3 and loses five seniors from this year's team after advancing the furthest it ever has in the playoffs under Lichamer.

Eyes Wide Open

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG On Thursday, 18-year-old Mathew Outlaw of Genoa (left) and 19-year-old Lisa Shockey of Cortland walked among the 144 boots arranged outside of DeKalb High School. Each pair represents a member of the military from Illinois who died in the war in Iraq or the conflict in Afghanistan.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Jill Doub, 24, of Eyes Wide Open, ties laces on the boots that represent one of the 144 members of the military from Illinois who have died in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The traveling exhibition, Eyes Wide Open, began in 2004 and represented the total number of U.S. military personnel who were killed. The exhibition has since been divided by state, according to Jill Doub of Eyes Wide Open. “We’re looking to raise awareness of the human cost of war,” Doub said.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Daisies adorn the boots representing Illinois National Guard 1st Lt. Brian D. Slavenas at the Eyes Wide Open traveling exhibition at DeKalb High School on Thursday afternoon. Slavenas, of Genoa, died in November 2003 in Iraq.

Time Starts Again

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Floyd Stamper (left) and Bob Heald install on Thursday a replica clock face made of polycarbonate on the Soldier and Sailors Memorial Clock, which is near the intersection of Lincoln Highway and First Street in DeKalb. The face and hands are replicas of those on the original 1921 E. Howard and Co. clock, and a new computerized system that accounts for power outages and daylight saving time has been installed.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Bob Heald, clock manager of the Rock Island-based The Fancy Street Clock & Light Co., adjusts the magnetic motor behind one of the four faces of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Clock in downtown DeKalb on Thursday morning.

The one-of-a-kind clock was dedicated Feb. 13, 1921, in honor of all soldiers and sailors. Some of the clock's inner components began to fail because of deterioration and moisture, DeKalb Public Works Director Rick Monas said Thursday. The clock faces had faded and the original wooden hands had to be replaced.

The city is saving the original components of the clock, Monas said. The Landmark Commission of the City of DeKalb would like to eventually restore all the original parts, he added.

But that will take time, he said, and the city has been anxious to have the clock working again since it stopped working about a year ago. “We went through Veterans Day without the clock,” he said. “In due respect to all those veterans who appreciate the purpose behind the clock, it's time to have it working.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The glass faces (left) of the original Soldier and Sailors Memorial Clock in downtown DeKalb will be stored by the city while the bezels will be reinstalled on the clock being restored by The Fancy Street Clock & Light Co. of Rock Island.

The Beginning of the End

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston High School graduate Melani Giannoni, 18, smiles at well-wishers in the crowd before the start of the high school's 137th commencement exercise Wednesday night in Genoa.

What A Game!

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore forward Nici Newquist, left, battles for the ball with Rockford Boylan's Monica Barrera in the first half of the Spartans' IHSA Class 2A Freeport Sectional semi-final game Tuesday evening in Freeport.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore goalie Sarah Fischer had thirteen saves on the night for the Spartans as she shut down the top-seeded Titans of Rockford Boylan.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore forward Tory Tilton (14) is mobbed by teammates, from left, Mackenzie Mueller (1), Krista Koeplin (5) and Nici Newquist (2) after scoring the go-ahead goal against top-seeded Rockford Boylan with five minutes remaining to put the Spartans up 2-1 over the Titans.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore's Katie Bolander, left, and Rockford Boylan's Taylor Reed compete for a header in the second half.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Players on the Sycamore Spartans bench leap onto the field after the Spartans' 2-1 victory in the IHSA Class 2A Freeport Sectional semi-final game Tuesday evening in Freeport.

Foulk's Facts

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Anthony Foulk is the backstop of a Sycamore Spartan baseball team that heads into the playoffs Wednesday in Dixon. “He's Division I talent with Division III size,” head coach Jason Cavanaugh said. “There's no doubt in my mind that he can play catcher, second base or third base at the Division I level but he's going to continually get overlooked because of his size, which is unfair, but that's the way it works.”

Your One Day to See the Barn

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Preservationist Roger Keys (right), speaks with Sharon and Rex Lea Trea of Sycamore on Sunday afternoon outside the barn at the Joseph F. Glidden Homestead & Historical Center in DeKalb. The barn, which is on the National Register of Historic Places and abuts a Burger King parking lot, is a true survivor, according to Keys. “We’re pretty much preserving the building until we can raise the funds for restoration,” he said.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG A discarded art project with a barbed-wire theme lies in the back of the Glidden Homestead barn as visitors gather near the entrance to the 19th-century structure Sunday. The barn, which is under renovation, is believed to be the site where Joseph Glidden first manufactured “The Winner” barbed wire in the early 1870s.

DeKalb County: The Music World's Hub

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Operations manager Bobby Joe Rinaldo directs traffic as employees of Nocturne Productions in DeKalb load a semitrailer with cases for the rock band Metallica on Thursday morning at the business’ warehouse. DeKalb-based Nocturne Productions specializes in high-definition video screens and projection, and Upstaging Inc. in Sycamore builds lighting equipment and stage pieces and operates a fleet of trucks to transport the gear all over the country.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The Nocturne Productions warehouse, located on Harvestore Road in DeKalb since 2005, is 35,000 square feet of cases, wires and video equipment staffed by 20 employees locally and 150 who tour with bands across America. Nocturne built and ran the video for Paul McCartney's Super Bowl halftime performance in February 2005.

NIU Graduates 3,000

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Graduates in the Northern Illinois University College of Visual and Performing Arts gathered at Victor E. Court before heading to the arena of the Convocation Center for commencement exercises Saturday evening.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The shoes were off for doctoral candidate in audiology student Lindsay Scorpio, left, 26, of Austin, Texas, as she waited with her fellow graduates before the start of Saturday evening's commencement exercises in the Convocation Center. 2008 marked the first year NIU graduated students with doctorates in audiology, which is the study hearing, balance, and related problems.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Yung-Chin Chang, center, waves to friends in the audience as she waits to sit before the third of three commencement exercises at the Convocation Center Saturday evening in DeKalb. Chang, 23, was born in Taiwan and received a master's degree in music on Saturday and said that her parents were watching the ceremony simulcast on the internet.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University President John Peters, left, bows his head during a moment of silence to remember those killed during the Feb. 14 shootings on the NIU campus at the start of the last of three commencement exercises on Saturday.
“We could not control the circumstances that gave us this gift of perspective,” Peters said in his speech to the graduates. “But each of us can determine how to use it. My wish for you: May your gift be one that guides you toward good decisions, compels you to embrace a life of purpose and reminds you to demonstrate compassion in all you do.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG More than 3,000 Northern Illinois University students graduated in three separate commencement ceremonies on Saturday.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG An excited graduate student from Northern Illinois University's College of Education holds her degree for friends and family to see at Saturday evening's commencement ceremony at the school's Convocation Center.

Cogs Triple It Up

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston baserunner Sarah Bergstrom collides with Stillman Valley third baseman Tara Beach in the fourth inning of the Cogs' 1-0 victory over the Cardinals Saturday morning in Genoa. Bergstrom scored after the ball escaped Beach's grasp on this play.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston's Sarah Bergstrom, center, leaps into the arms of her teammates after scoring the lone run of the game for the Cogs in the fourth inning of their 1-0 victory over Stillman Valley to capture the IHSA Class AA Genoa-Kingston Regional Final Saturday morning in Genoa.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The Cogs of Genoa-Kingston High School rush the field after defeating the Stillman Valley Cardinals 1-0 behind a one-hitter from pitcher Lindsay Decker to capture the Class AA Regional Final Saturday morning in Genoa.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG For the third year in a row, the Cogs of Genoa-Kingston won the IHSA Class AA Genoa-Kingston Regional Final.

Marian Beguin

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Wright Elementary School second-grader Hank Barnes, 7, is delighted as a monarch butterfly alights on his hand Friday afternoon during a ceremony in memory of kindergarten teacher Marian Beguin at the Malta school. Staff, students and parents came together at the school to remember Beguin, who was killed in an automobile accident in August, and to dedicate a bench, decorated with butterflies, in her memory.

In Her Honor

Chronicle story and photographs by Eric Sumberg

On a day that seemed like a gift from the heavens, the community of Wright Elementary School gave a gift to one of their own.

Wright Elementary School students, staff and parents gathered on Friday in front of their low-slung Malta building with a mix of anticipation and sadness for a ceremony in honor of Marian Beguin, a kindergarten teacher who was killed in an automobile accident in August.

“She would be proud of each and every one of you,” said David Beguin, her husband, as he thanked attendees and those who contributed money toward a memorial bench that was unveiled at the ceremony, as well as those who contributed to the scrapbook of notes that he was given at the event.

Principal Gina Greenwald began Friday's gathering by recounting stories of how much joy Beguin brought to her students in the two years she taught at Wright.

“It's her laugh. She was so enthusiastic about learning. She was right there, engulfed in it as much as the children,” Greenwald said. “She truly had a love for making kids happy as they were learning.”

The bench, which sits near the school's entrance, was created by a North Carolina artist who makes memorial benches. It has a painted concrete bottom and mosaic top made with small bits of china arranged in the shape of butterflies.

Butterflies factored heavily into Friday's ceremony, a tribute to Beguin's love of teaching about the life cycle of that insect. Beguin's daughter, 16-year-old Catherine, released monarch butterflies to the delight of all as they fluttered about in the wind and landed on the occasional student.

“Our entire family appreciates the support of the kids, the parents and the staff at Wright. They are family,” David Beguin said. “She loved the kids, she loved to teach. Part of the love she left here we leave with the kids of Wright. She was a special lady, and we thank God every day for her.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Members of the DeKalb-area and Wright Elementary School communities donated money for this bench to be built in honor of Marian Beguin, a kindergarten teacher at the Malta school who was killed in an automobile accident in August. “She truly had a love for making kids happy as they were learning,” Principal Gina Greenwald said.

Slide Royals

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Hinckley-Big Rock's Jake Paver slides in safely past the tag of Somonauk catcher Steve Weismiller during the third inning of Thursday's IHSA Class A Somonauk Regional semifinal won 4-3 by the Royals.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Despite photographic evidence to the contrary, Hinckley-Big Rock baserunner Jake Paver was called out after Somonauk first baseman Sal Peritore dove to tag first base to end the fourth inning of Thursday's IHSA Class A Somonauk Regional semifinal won 4-3 by the Royals.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Somonauk second baseman Tyler Buell checks the ground for a sliding Nolan Craig of Hinckley-Big Rock after unsuccessfully corraling a throw to catch Craig stealing in the top of the fifth inning of the Royals' 4-3 victory in the IHSA Class A Somonauk Regional semifinal Thursday at Somonauk High School.

A Different Beat

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Jody Cook, owner of A Different Drummer Music in Somonauk, assembles a drum in his store Thursday afternoon. Cook likes the freedom that owning a business gives him, even if it means he does a lot of the grunt work around the store. “Since it’s my place, I can make sure things are getting done,” Cook said.

Of Drums and Men

Editor's note: This is the 12th in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Jody Cook owns A Different Drummer Music in Somonauk. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with him from 2:45-3:45 p.m. Thursday.

The windows on the front of the building at South Depot and West DeKalb streets in Somonauk are notable for their height and breadth.

As one stands on the street, the panes are an impressive 9 feet wide and stretch from waist height to about 12 feet tall. The light washes through them on even an overcast day.

This is the site of A Different Drummer Music, owned by Jody Cook, a sturdily built 40-year-old man with a beard and with tattoos running up both of his arms.

“We're new here, opened up the first week in January,” Cook said as he assembled the floor tom - a double-headed tom-tom drum - of a set of Mapex QR Series drums for a customer Thursday afternoon. “It's been going good.”

Cook operates the store with the help of his wife, Gayla, and his sister, Amy Kember. Also helping are a grandson, 3-year-old Alex Parker, and a rotating cast of three music professionals, including himself, who give guitar and drum lessons.

From 2001 until last year, he owned a store in Ottawa named A Different Drummer. He sold it to a couple of his former employees.

“This is closer to my home, and the best way to say it is I wanted to do things a little bit differently than I did in Ottawa,” Cook said. “That was my first attempt at a business.”

Cook is a native of Sheridan and attended high school in Serena. After working at a body shop for two years, he began a 10-year stint at the Sheridan Correctional Center, a job he held until 1998.

His love for music has endured.

“I started playing drums in grade school, started taking drum set lessons from Santucci's Music,” said Cook, referring to a now-defunct Ottawa music store. “I guess I always wanted to do something with music.”

Now that he operates, by his own estimation, the only area music shop apart from stores in DeKalb and Naperville, he considers himself a wiser businessman.

“I think I learned some more efficient ways to do business, how to handle employees, that sort of thing,” Cook said of his previous store. The lesson was to trust yourself to do what you need done and no one else, he said.

While his original plan was to open a store in Yorkville - a competitor, now closed, had already opened a business there - he said he is happy with how things have turned out.

“I like the building, the rent was reasonable,” he said. “We're a little smaller than we were in Ottawa.”

The money in the music store business is in the small stuff, drumheads and other items of musical life. Cook attempts to stay in the black financially by owning everything he sells in his shop.

“It's not a huge moneymaker, but it is potentially a big moneymaker. It doesn't have to be a million-dollar business off the bat to make it something you do and afford you a comfortable living,” he said.

On any given day, he can have five people trickle into his shop or more than 50. It doesn't really matter to Cook.

“The most enjoyable part is when you take a student that is young when they're really enjoying drums or guitar. They're looking at equipment the way I used to look at equipment. You can be a part of something they're interested in.”

Prom, DeKalb, Style

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Anthony Chatman (rear) checks the fit of the white prom suit his son, Kenneth Wiggins, tries on at Ducky’s Formal Wear on Thursday afternoon in DeKalb. Wiggins, a junior at DeKalb High School, was planning to wear an orange tie and pocket square to match his girlfriend’s dress.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kris Wrenn, a manager at Kar-Fre Flowers, prepares a boutonniere after crafting a corsage (bottom) out of roses, baby’s breath and rhinestones at the Sycamore store Thursday afternoon in preparation for DeKalb High School’s prom, which was Saturday.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Ducky’s Formal Wear employee Kaitlyn Alexander, 19, hurries as she carries three dresses for a customer to try on Thursday afternoon at the DeKalb store. “It’s fun being with the prom kids,” said Alexander, a student at Northern Illinois University. “It’s fun, but busy.”

Barbs Triumph 4-nil

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG A Marengo player hits the turf in the first half of the IHSA Class 2A DeKalb Regional semifinal game Wednesday.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School's Karen Lehan, left, walks off the field as her teammates Taylor Hallgren (9) and Kay Smith (13) chest bump at midfield after the Barbs dismantled the Marengo Indians 4-0 in their Class 4A IHSA DeKalb Regional game. Hallgren scored a hat trick on the day and Erin Finucane added the fourth goal in Wednesday's game at DeKalb High School.

The Newquists

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore High School junior and soccer team co-captain Nici Newquist (left) was taught the game by her mother Tammy Newquist, who is now a first-year assistant for the Indian Creek girls soccer team. Though her schedule now prohibits her from watching Nici's matches, Tammy Newquist is confident she is having a good time on the pitch. “We're happy that she's doing this with us there and without us there,” Tammy Newquist said.

Supermom

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb mom Kristine Nelson relaxes between frames of bowling with her son, Jacob Bidstrup (rear), as her daughter, Penelope Price, 9 months, crawls under the scorer’s table at Mardi Gras Lanes Sunday afternoon in DeKalb. Moms bowled free on Sunday at the bowling alley, and Jacob took turns watching Penelope so Kristine could bowl. “This is kind of our pastime together, to bowl,” Nelson said.

Mom's Moment

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Debbie Geiger of Sycamore had a Mother's Day that may sound familiar to some others in the DeKalb area.

“In true Mother's Day fashion, we went to McDonald's for lunch and got Happy Meals, and the boys made me breakfast in bed this morning,” Geiger said in between turns at Mardi Gras Lanes on Sunday afternoon.

What did her sons, Michael, 8, and Andrew, 6, serve her?

“Frosted Flakes,” she said. “And they were the best Frosted Flakes!”

Geiger, accompanied by her husband, Damon, was one of the local mothers being treated to something else special on Sunday: free bowling. This was the second year that Mardi Gras Lanes offered the discount for Mother's Day, according to employee Bill Smith, who reported higher than normal attendance for the end of the week.

“Mother's Day is special. Moms always get a break,” he said.

For moms such as Ellen Mays of DeKalb, Sunday's rain allowed her to spend some quality time at the lanes with her son Andy, 5.

“We went to the Y to swim,” Mays said, adding that her husband, Sean, was watching

22-month-old twins Ryan and Kyle at home as part of his gift to her. “He can stay home and work, and I can come out and have fun.”

Andy gave his mom a flower and a heart covered by a handprint and a poem, and Sean gave her a shirt, a purse, and the day off.

“I think we're going to order out so I don't have to cook,” Mays said with a laugh.

Charlie Pelton and LeeAnn Kennedy of DeKalb brought a whole crew of grandparents, sisters and kids to the lanes, including 11-month-old Tristan Pelton and 9-year-old Domanic Kennedy. Another son, Sabian, 16, couldn't make it because he was under the weather, but Sunday was otherwise a very pleasant Mother's Day for LeeAnn. She received flowers and breakfast, and Domanic put towels on the floor for a makeshift red carpet as she exited her bedroom that morning.

“We went to Ruby Tuesday last night, to eliminate the rush,” she said. “It's been a great day.”

Cortland's Jacob Bidstrup, 17, and his mom, Kristine Nelson, of DeKalb were at the lanes as usual on Sunday with Nelson's daughter, Penelope Price, who is 9 months old.

“This is kind of our pastime together,” Nelson said, adding that Penelope enjoys seeing the balls go down the lane. While Jacob bought his mother an Italian beef sandwich at Portillo's on Sunday and gave her money to get her hair done, perhaps the greatest demonstration of how he feels about his mom was on the scoreboard. Instead of Kristine's name, the scorecard read “Supermom.”

Sycamore 150

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Discover Sycamore director Jamie Sands wears a handmade dress while distributing historical postcards to those in attendance at Sycamore Park for a picnic to celebrate the city’s 150th year. Sands, who did not grow up in the area, believed that Midwestern hospitality was an exaggeration until she moved to Sycamore. “I thought it could only partially be true, but here, more than any other place, I find that hospitality,”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG One-year-old Lillian Bruhl of Maple Park enjoys a cupcake with the numbers 150 written on it in icing served by her aunt Christiene Drake of Sycamore at the Sycamore Sesquicentennial Ceremony Friday night on the lawn in front of the DeKalb County Courthouse. Hundreds turned out to listen to historical proclamations and hear high school and elementary school bands and choirs perform American hymns to kick off the year of celebrations.

John Peters

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Nearly three months after the shooting at Northern Illinois University that claimed the lives of six people, including the gunman, President John Peters, standing in an Altgeld Hall atrium on Friday, believes the Huskie community will remain strong as it moves forward. "What we're going to accomplish in the years to come is truly going to be amazing," Peters said.

DeKalb Falls, Birds Forage

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School shortstop Ali Ford, left, steps in front of second baseman Jessica Hetland to grab a ground ball in the top of the second inning of the Barbs' 6-0 loss to Glenbard South Friday afternoon at DeKalb High School.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG A bird alights on top of the first base fence at the DeKalb High School softball field with a grub in its mouth. The roof of the visitor's dugout at the field houses a bird's nest with four young chicks, presumably belonging to this bird and its partner. How sweet.

Celebration and Controversy for Israel@60

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Belly dancer Lesly Baker of Gurnee performs Thursday afternoon for a crowd at Northern Illinois University’s MLK Memorial Commons during a celebration of the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding.

Israel: Three Score

Story and Photographs by Eric Sumberg

Israel reached a milestone Thursday.

On the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Middle Eastern nation, celebrations were held worldwide - including one at Northern Illinois University.

“We're really proud of Israel. I've been there twice,” said Jane Kaykov, 21, a senior at NIU and member of StandWithUs, a nonprofit Israel education organization. “It's an amazing country, and we wanted to bring a little culture to campus.”

StandWithUs sponsored Thursday's event on the DeKalb campus, as did Alpha Epsilon Phi and the NIU Hillel, a Jewish campus organization. More than 60 members of the NIU community came to MLK Memorial Commons for the event. Attendees ate falafel, a chickpea-based fried food that is popular in Israel, listened to the Key Tov Orchestra, a Chicago-based musical group, and watched and participated in belly dancing.

NIU Hillel President Cary Wolovick, 23, said that there are approximately 300 Jewish students at the university and that NIU Hillel, though small in number, is a growing organization.

Thursday's celebration was part of a series of events nationwide that sought to unite supporters of Israel.

“It is a nationwide celebration,” Wolovick said. “If you go on Facebook, you might see anyone Jewish has something about Israel at 60.”

But as with most events that put a spotlight on the Middle East, and Israel in particular, a contrasting viewpoint also worked to make its voice heard Thursday. On the opposite side of the commons, a group of about 15 people stood holding signs with slogans such as “Boycott Israeli Terrorism” and symbols such as Israeli flags drawn in a way to suggest they are more evil than the Nazi swastika.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Abdul Rafay, 24, of Glen Ellyn holds an anti-Israel sign at Northern Illinois University’s MLK Memorial Commons on Thursday afternoon during a protest organized by the NIU Muslim Student Association.

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The protest group, which was organized by the NIU Muslim Student Association but was not exclusively composed of members of that organization, was asked to take the poster with the Israeli flag on it down. They did, but those who remained holding signs were unafraid to express their opinion of the Israeli state.

“We're just here to protest the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the formation of Israel,” said Muslim Student Association President Rami Saqa, 22. “We're here to speak out against it.”

Saqa said he felt compelled to speak out because he believes that atrocities are being committed by Israelis against Palestinians.

“What we want to show is the atrocities,” he said, pointing to a poster with pictures that appeared to depict people who had been injured by agents of the Israeli army.

“Just because they are Jewish, how do they deserve that land?”

Watching from the sidelines of the Israeli celebration was Eli Sisou, an Israeli man who came to America in 1980. Sisou came to the NIU campus on Thursday because his wife, Charisse Sisou, was one of three belly dancers performing for the gathered audience.

The Haifa-born Sisou had never celebrated Israel's nationhood before.

“It feels great. You feel fuzzy. It's nice to celebrate, especially for my kids who have never celebrated,” he said.

As he looked across the commons, he squinted as he watched the gathering of students holding anti-Israel posters.

“I feel sad they need to protest this,” he said. “It's such a complex issue to solve, and we need to solve it with love. It's so sad that we still hate each other. Israeli people aren't bad, we aren't evil.”

Blaze Guts Home

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb Fire Department Captain Eric Hicks uses an ax to cut a hole in the roof of a structure at 511 1/2 S. Fourth St. which caught on fire at about 6:35 p.m. Thursday. The fire caused at least $68,000 in damage, DeKalb Fire Department officials said Friday. It was an accidental fire caused by cooking oil left unattended on the stove, which produced an open flame that spread to the surrounding cabinets and ceiling, according to the news release. No injuries were reported.

Caps 4 Sam Tops Off

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Atticus, a 2-year-old pug owned by Tara Noronha of Chicago, wore a visor with the Caps 4 Sam logo near the finish line of Sunday’s five-kilometer timed walk in Hopkins Park in DeKalb. Noronha, not shown, works in the hospital’s fundraising development office and has been at all three Caps 4 Sam events. “We’re really proud to be a recipient of their funds,” she said.

Wear it Proud

Story and Photographs by Eric Sumberg

There was something for everyone. An ice-cream cone, a five-kilometer race, a handwritten note, a beautiful day in the park. They were all there, and for a good cause.

A practically perfect Sunday in Hopkins Park in DeKalb more than 800 people come to support Caps 4 Sam, the third annual event to raise money for Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. Sam Ihm, who is now 13, had surgery on a brain tumor more than three years ago on Jan. 18, 2005. The caps were one way that Sam connected to those around him in a difficult time.

“He was going to have to wear a cap. Pretty soon, all his friends did the same,” said Mary Overbey, Sam's grandmother. “He even gave one to his doctor.”

On the day of his surgery, the entirety of St. Mary School in DeKalb wore caps. Now, three years later, Caps 4 Sam caps and visors are everywhere. The event has also become a major event in the early spring schedule for the area, with greater participation each year.

“The number of runners has increased by about 100 or 150,” Overbey said. “We had 750 shirts this year, and some people didn't even get one.”

Local businesses and organizations have pitched in with monetary donations and volunteer work. BioLife Plasma Services in DeKalb gave $4,000; Whitman's Catering provided 400 chicken, beef, pork sandwiches and hot dogs; Papa John's donated pizza; and Northern Rehab gave massages. Several sororities from Northern Illinois University staffed various parts of the day's festivities, including by keeping the buffet for participants in the newly renovated Hopkins Park shelter stocked.

Runners were also pleased with the event, and themselves.

“This is how I like to give charity,” said Liz Lemrise, 24, a graduate student in physical education at NIU, after finishing first for women in the five-kilometer run in a time of 21:00.

Men's winner Nathan Eagen, 27, of DeKalb, set a new course record in the five-kilometer with a time of 16:53.

“It's a nice area. I like the setup they have; it's very organized,” he said after his race.

For those who participated in the 3-kilometer walk, above, through the park, such as Jody Brown, 35, an undergraduate in NIU's Nursing School who walked with 10 of her classmates and their families, this year had a personal touch.

“This is the first time we did it, because it's the first time we met Mary,” Brown said, referring to clinical work her classmates had done with Overbey, who is the program director for the DeKalb Adult Day Center. “I'm sure we'll be back.”

As for Sam, now a laid-back teenager who plays on a traveling baseball team and aspires to play for the Chicago Cubs, each year is a reminder of how far he has come.

“It's a whole new experience from what my life was like before,” he said.

Foreclosures on Tour

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Denise Ii (left), Danise Blake (center) and real estate agent Joe Frieders walk through a foreclosed property on Washington Street in Sandwich on Sunday afternoon. The group at the house was the second transported last weekend by a van organized by Avenue Mortgage Corp. in Sandwich so people could see a number of foreclosed properties in the area.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG More than 15 people visited a foreclosed home on Bainbridge Court in Sandwich on Sunday. Organizers of a tour of foreclosed homes said the van, which was followed by a caravan of four to five cars of additional real estate shoppers, is an efficient way to show a lot of homes. “Every house has got a buyer; it just needs to be the right price,” said the van’s driver, Joe Frieders of Swanson Real Estate.

The Procession of Brett Bouma

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The funeral procession for DeKalb County Sgt. Brett Bouma drove south on Peace Road from Christ Community Church in DeKalb to North Clinton Township Cemetery near Waterman on Friday. Bouma, 36, died last Sunday at Kishwaukee Community Hospital in DeKalb of a pulmonary embolism following a recent surgery.

Deja DeKalb

Chronicle photos ERIC SUMBERG Two plays, same result. In the bottom of the first inning, DeKalb baserunner Jessica Hetland, top, slipped past Sycamore High School catcher Elora Oprins to score and in the bottom of the second inning Sycamore shortstop Anna Buzzard reached, unsuccessfully, to tag DeKalb baserunner Lisa Oller. DeKalb capitalized on their good baserunning and solid hitting to beat their cross-town rivals 4-0 Thursday evening.

May Day

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Andres Hijar, 29, a PHd graduate student in Latin American history from Juarez, Mexico, spoke to a gathering of around 100 people for a May Day celebration at MLK Memorial Commons on Thursday afternoon. "We've got to see ourselves as equal," Hijar said of the plight of Mexican immigrants who live in America. "There has got to be a change."

Sycamore's Finest

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Illinois Army National Guard Sgt. Ben Allen of DeKalb walks across the main room of the Sycamore Armory on Tuesday afternoon. Though the armory was relatively quiet, soldiers are hard at work preparing for a three-week training exercise that will begin Friday, as well as for a combat deployment to Afghanistan later this year.

Battery Charging

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Tuesday was a regular day at the Sycamore Armory.

Soldiers sat at their desks, quietly shuffling papers. Others walked among the large artillery guns and Humvees as they carried stacks of camouflage clothing. Typically, no more than eight people are in the spacious 1938 Works Progress Administration building on East State Street at a time.

But in three days, formation will be called and up to 80 Illinois Army National Guard members will stand at attention, ready for a three-week training trip to the Marseilles Training Center east of Ottawa. The training exercise is in preparation for the Alpha Battery 2-122 Field Artillery's deployment to Afghanistan later this year.

“There's a whole lot of paperwork,” First Lt. Hugh Perry of New Orleans said. “We've got to make sure our soldiers are getting fed, getting their education.”

Perry joined the Illinois battery because he said he likes the people. He flies up monthly to train in Sycamore and at other facilities.

When he's in New Orleans, he works as a consultant at an energy company. He also is pursuing a Master of Business Administration at Tulane University.

Many members of the battery will be seeing their first combat zone when they deploy to Afghanistan.

“We've been mobilizing for a while,” Perry said. “We're going out to Afghanistan, and we've got to get ready for this deployment.”

The 122nd will be going to Afghanistan without their guns. Their job will be to provide security, not artillery, and the early 1970s howitzer guns on which they have been training will be replaced while they're gone with new 105 mm M-119A2 howitzers produced at the Rock Island Arsenal.

On a daily basis, the business of running the battery is complex.

“It's not like your typical active-duty job. At an active-duty location you have medical facilities and training and soldiers who come every day,” said Sgt. 1st Class Clayton Riley, who has worked at the armory since August 2005. “While we still have the same benefits of an active-duty location, we just have to travel a little to get the same job accomplished.”

There are 13 periods each year in which the entire battery, which has about 100 soldiers, gets together for three to four days. Friday's gathering is the start of an active training period. Those who report will head to the battery's mobilization site at the Marseilles Training Center and be there for three weeks.

Following that, the battery will be home for approximately a month and then will head to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for mobilization training prior to deployment. Making sure that each soldier is where he or she is supposed to be, at the proper pay rate with the right equipment, falls to Riley.

“In this organization, everybody's supposed to come at the same time, but some have families, some go early,” he said. “Some work at different times. We subsidize our lack of manpower with appeasing the soldier.”

As for the life of a camouflage-wearing soldier in an area that does not have a major military presence, Riley acknowledges there may be some people who don't know there is a lot of work going on in the building on East State Street. While the Army has housed the National Guard battery here for almost 12 years, there have been a number of other units that have been at the facility. Now, however, there is the National Guard, and the members are ready to get going.

“Our operational tempo is very high with the mobilization in the near future,” Riley said.

Early Advantage

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Former Sycamore High School soccer standout Brad Horton (center) dresses before practice at his new school, Northern Illinois University, where he enrolled this spring to get a head start on his athletic and academic career. “It’s definitely a lot different than anything I’ve done before," Horton said of the last few months, during which time he has lived at home while studying and practicing at NIU.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Despite being selected as an All-American by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in 2007, in 2008, Brad Horton is another first-year player on the Northern Illinois University soccer squad. As part of his freshman duties, Horton helped to carry nets on to the field before practice on Wednesday.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Eighteen-year-old Northern Illinois University freshman Brad Horton, shown during soccer practice at Huskie Stadium on Tuesday, is the first early enrollee to be recruited by men's head coach Steve Simmons, right.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Brad Horton, center, enjoys some frozen custard at Ollie's Frozen Custard in Sycamore on Thursday with Sycamore High School friends, clockwise from rear, Ryan Peifer, Andy Maratto, and Elliot Leinhard. "It's almost like I'm two different people," Horton said of having a life at Northern Illinois University and one with his high school friends.

One Hour With: Valvoline Instant Oil Change

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Brandon Green, 20, braces himself against the side of a Dodge Caravan to attempt to loosen a stubborn serpentine belt at Valvoline Instant Oil Change Friday afternoon in DeKalb. Despite breaking a flashlight and bloodying his hands in the process, Green installed a new belt without losing his temper. "I like to make things work out the best they can," he said.

Oil Toil

Editor's note: This is the ninth in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time at Valvoline Instant Oil Change at 2615 Sycamore Road in DeKalb from 4-5 p.m. Friday.

A little before 4 p.m. Friday, four men stood in a small circle in the pit area of Valvoline Instant Oil Change in DeKalb.

It was a brief respite for Drew Hurdy, 26, Brandon Green, 20, Joe Ybarra, 21, and Jarret Wheeler, 21, who had serviced a parade of vehicles since the shop opened at 8 a.m.

“It's steady,” shop manager Hurdy said. “But it's starting to slow down. Gas prices are having an impact on it.”

The basic oil change with inspection costs $31.99, up from $29.99 in January. For that, customers get a look at their lights and fluid levels, an oil change and a filter change.

“A lot of people come in and ask how much. We say $31.99 and they say, ‘I'm outta here,'” Green said.

Employees at the oil-change shop see things most motorists rarely come across. Mice are a common sight, often nesting in part of the engine.

At about 4:10 p.m., a Dodge Caravan pulled into the lot.

“Customer on the lot,” Hurdy shouted as the other three employees moved into position. After a quick inspection of the vehicle, Ybarra opened the hood and started seeing to the fluid levels.

“Tail lights, that's good!” Hurdy said.

“Going to raise it up,” Ybarra replied as Wheeler checked tire pressure on the vehicle while it rose. After draining the oil into a pan, Ybarra grabbed a hose hanging from the ceiling - a hose connected to a container filled with nonsynthetic 5w-30 oil. After taking care of the oil, he took the dipstick over to show the customer that the job had been done. Hurdy walked over and did a final check.

“We're ready to roll,” he said as he slammed the hood shut, sending the car off 15 minutes after it had pulled in.

At about 4:30 p.m., a brief storm interrupted work.

“Is it raining?” Green asked no one in particular.

Ybarra said he views his job at the DeKalb shop as a great start to what he wants to do with his life.

“I want to be a technician working on Porsches,” he said. “I want to be known in the industry. This is a great learning opportunity.”

The shop soon filled up with vehicles, mostly minivans and sport utility vehicles. The employees shouted out what they were doing to keep their boss, and the customer, aware of their progress.

“When you're busy, time goes by real fast,” Wheeler, above, said. “We try to make it fun.”

When it was nearly 5 p.m., the rush had abated for a few minutes. Hurdy fielded a phone call by announcing, “Having a great day at Valvoline Instant Oil Change, how can I help you?”

Behind him, Ybarra announced a new car on the lot.

Sycamore 1-0 DeKalb

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore junior forward Nici Newquist was the outstanding player of Thursday's soccer game against DeKalb.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb goalkeeper Kay Smith, left, tries to haul in a corner kick as Sycamore's Tory Tipton, center, and DeKalb's Kristin Jorgenson, right, battle for position in the second half of Thursday's game.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore forward Nici Newquist (center) celebrates with her teammates after she scored the game-winning goal at 75:03 into Thursday's match against DeKalb.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore's Tory Tilton, top, crashes down on top of DeKalb's Kristin Jorgenson in the second half of their game on Thursday.

Huml's Day

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore High School catcher Elora Oprins applies the tag moments too late as Kaneland's Mallory Huml slides past her to score in the top of the second inning of the Knights' 4-0 victory over the Spartans on Tuesday in Sycamore.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore could manage only 9 hits off of Kaneland's Huml and scored no runs to drop their record to 8-5.

Earthly Treasures

Environmentalism has come into the mainstream.

The environmental movement has evolved from Henry David Thoreau writing about Walden Pond to the creation in the early 1900s of the National Park Service to such legislation as the Clean Air Act in the 1960s to former Vice President Al Gore's climate-change movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

It wasn't always that way.

“People tend to hear the word environmentalists and they get all bent out of shape,” said Peggy Doty, a natural resources educator with the University of Illinois Extension. “The real true environmentalists of the world are trying to balance the perspectives.”

There are many people locally who share Doty's understanding about environmentalists. In celebration of Earth Day, which is Tuesday, several shared why they love the Earth - and how they're helping to preserve and improve it.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Terry Hannan, 55, is superintendent of the DeKalb County Forest Preserve District, a position he has held for 33 years. Hannan is standing on the shores of the Little Rock Creek in the Afton Forest Preserve south of DeKalb, a tract of prairie, marsh and forest that he helped to develop in 1975. “It’s just nice to see what a wonderful place this has become here,” Hannan said.

Terry Hannan

When Terry Hannan came to DeKalb to work as the superintendent of the DeKalb County Forest Preserve District in 1975, there were three preserves - Chief Shabbona, Sannauk and Russell Woods. Today, there are 14 properties and two more pending.

“That was all done on a shoestring budget,” Hannan said with a smile.

The key to maintaining all of the properties can be found in the philosophy behind the preserves, he said.

“It's plants that naturally grow here. With the prairie, you're not watering or fertilizing or mowing,” he said. “It's one-tenth the cost of a typical residential or corporate landscape, plus it has a sense of history. It changes every month, and it provides beauty and habitat.”

At one time, preserves had non-native species growing that weren't part of the natural landscape of the county's prairies and wetlands.

A movement started in the mid-1980s to restore landscapes to look like native northern Illinois habitats. The Afton Forest Preserve is a prime example: Purchased in 1984, it has grown from 5 acres to 240 acres of wetland, forest preserve and prairie. At least 157 bird species have been recorded by bird-watchers in the preserve.

“All the forest preserves have their special place or their niche,” Hannan said. “You'll get a whole different look at wildlife.”

A referendum approved in 2005 has provided funding for land acquisitions, which means area residents can be assured that the lands they love will continue to be well cared for and that new lands will likely be added.

Hannan credits volunteers, his staff, DeKalb County residents and the DeKalb County Board's ecological vision for making his life's cause so successful.

“It's been a great journey,” Hannan said. “I've learned a lot, I've met a lot of wonderful people, and it's been a good ride here.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Photographed on a bridge crossing the Kishwaukee River, Peggy Doty, 43, is the natural resources educator for the DeKalb County office of the University of Illinois Extension. She works at a satellite office at the natural resource center in the Russell Woods Forest Preserve in Genoa. Doty wants to ensure that the next generation is prepared for its ecological responsibility. “When these kids grow up and they’re a part of a governmental system, they can make sound decisions,” Doty said.

Peggy Doty

As an educator, Peggy Doty wants her students to be emotionally connected to the Earth.

“Everybody needs to be allowed to find that connection,” Doty said. “Without dirt we don't eat, yet who cares about soil?”

Doty, 43, has been working as a natural resources educator for nine years with the University of Illinois Extension. Nearly 6,000 schoolchildren have attended her programs, which are held at the natural resource center in Genoa and at other forest preserves in DeKalb County. What excites Doty is the variety that she has, not only in her small patch, but also in the DeKalb County Forest Preserve District as a whole. The city of Genoa recently approved a wildlife habitat improvement project that Doty believes will further enrich the learning environment for students.

“My kids don't have a prairie to study right here in Genoa, but this would give them a prairie,” she said. “It's a community gift.”

Managing how DeKalb County grows in tandem with its preservation is at the heart of what Doty sees as her mission as an educator.

“Growth isn't bad,” she said. “But growth without green space, we aren't OK.”

True environmentalism, Doty said, is trying to balance perspectives so that the policymakers of today have a sound basis for making decisions that affect the planet.

“Everything is connected,” Doty said. “You can't stop it, fighting it is ridiculous, so how do you work with it?”

As the University of Illinois Extension system faces a potential loss of matching funds from the state for the 2008 fiscal year, Doty worries a generational gap may emerge if students don't learn that the natural habitat is worth saving.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Craig Gilbertson, 58, shown at the Wilkinson/Renwick Marsh near Glidden Road north of DeKalb, is the chairman of the executive committee of the Kishwaukee Solduc Group of the Sierra Club. “When people actually see what there is, they care about saving it,” Gilbertson said of preserving DeKalb County’s natural habitats.

Craig Gilbertson

When Craig Gilbertson was a child, his father shared a few lessons with him.

“He taught me an appreciation of nature,” said Gilbertson, now 58. “He was what you would have called a conservationist. Don't waste, don't destroy things, preserve stuff for the future.”

When he was a sixth-grader attending a summer school for children of students at Northern Illinois University, Gilbertson went on a class trip to what is now called the Wilkinson/Renwick Marsh, a patch of woods and wetlands on Glidden Road north of DeKalb.

“We took water samples and looked at them under the microscope,” he recalled. “It was really neat; it was the first time I'd ever seen anything like that.”

Four decades later, the DeKalb resident is still coming to the spot, now a part of the DeKalb County Forest Preserve District. But now he's the one passing along the lessons to his grandchildren.

“It's a little area of peace, and sometimes you need to get away from buildings and people,” he said. “A natural area is one of the best areas you can find for people who are stressed out.”

Gilbertson is the chairman of the executive committee of the Kishwaukee Solduc Group of the Sierra Club. The group numbers more than 350, and its geographic range extends through DeKalb, Grundy and LaSalle counties. Preserving land through education and advocacy is this group's niche in the region's spectrum of environmental advocacy.

“There's more than one environmental organization, and they each do certain things very well,” he said. “There's a lot of overlap, but it's more complementary rather than competitive.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Monroe Center resident Rick Hoffman, 54, stands on the more than 300 acres of reclaimed floodplain that he and four neighbors have planted with thousands of trees native to Illinois as part of a plan to create a filter strip along the Kishwaukee River. “It’s a very satisfying feeling,” Hoffman says of the land, which has been growing without the need for management since 2000.

Rick Hoffman

Rick Hoffman asked himself a question.

“What else can we do to manage this land?”

In the upper northwest corner of DeKalb County, Hoffman, a former farmer and now a real estate broker, had built his home along the Kishwaukee River. The farmland that surrounded it flooded sometimes. His solution was trees - thousands of trees - 12 different species on a patch of 300 acres, 182 of which were his, that would create one of the first planned riverbank forest buffers in DeKalb County.

“It improves the quality of the stream and it provides an area for the floodplain to go,” Hoffman said.

The trees and native grasses that now stand taller than the people around them were planned by George Poe, an Illinois district forester with the state's Department of Natural Resources. They were planted in groups of 400 per acre, roughly 10 feet apart from each other. At the 12 year mark, they will be trimmed down to approximately 200 per acre. The trees will be harvested periodically but never clear-cut. Conservation easements provide that the land will always be in a natural state.

As a farmer and a broker, Hoffman has ties to both sides of the land.

“I've always believed in conservation and protection of the land,” he said. “I believe (this land) should not be farmed, to protect the quality of the river.”

Not every landowner can do what Hoffman and his neighbors have done. He acknowledges that if he had high-quality soil for farming, he likely wouldn't have made the land into a buffer.

“There's a place for everything,” Hoffman said. “I'm protecting land that needs protecting.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Eric Mogren, 47, is a professor of environmental history at Northern Illinois University and is an avid archer. Mogren stands on the grounds of the Kishwaukee Archers, a 20-acre tract of land north of Sycamore. “I don’t have the mountains out my back door,” Mogren said, “But I have this place.”

Eric Mogren

After a certain point, Eric Mogren realized he needed to call DeKalb County his home.

“I can't constantly be thinking this place is strange and alien,” the 47-year-old Mogren said. “The time has come to really appreciate this place.”

Raised the son of a forest ecologist in the mountains of Colorado, Mogren was used to seeing beauty around every corner. When he came to DeKalb in 1995 to teach history at Northern Illinois University, he saw a different land. By 2005, he had learned to appreciate the land so much that he had published a history of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau, “Native Soil.”

“This is a very managed environment. There's very little that isn't closely managed,” he said. “These fields are all very well tended and manicured, and they've been that way for 150 years.”

Mogren is an avid archer, having taken the sport up again after a hiatus a few years ago. Walking through the patch of land on which the Kishwaukee Archers club has its targets, he has found that he can speak of his craft and his land interchangeably.

“You have to be patient. That kind of beauty takes some kind of investment,” he said. “It's wonderful. Stand outside in a beautiful woods and a beautiful bow that is a part of me.”

Mogren knows that it's often the process that yields the true beauty that he seeks in his life.

“You have to be the whole thing, a part of it all,” he said. “I'm striving for that quality. I come out here and life is no longer complicated.”

Two Buds

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Reese, a four-month-old golden retriever, right, hit the ground, running, as he tried to keep up with his friend Harley, 3, in the Afton Forest Preserve on Thursday evening south of DeKalb. Reese, who is owned by Lance Reinbolz and Allison Karns, and Harley, who is owned by Jared Burke, all of DeKalb, were out playing together for the first time. "She's usually good for 30-45 minutes before I'm tired and want to go home," Burke said.

A Big Day at The Cell

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Chicago's Dale Peters, 68, a 1963 graduate of Northern Illinois University, holds his hat over his heart during a moment of silence to remember those killed both on the campus of Virginia Tech University one year ago and the five students who were killed on the DeKalb campus on Feb. 14. Peters, who came to the university to offer his support as a grief counselor for students the week following the attack, was among the 4,600 paid attendees at Wednesday evening's NIU baseball game against Notre Dame Univeristy at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. All proceeds from the game were donated by the Chicago White Sox to the February 14 Student Scholarship Fund.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Members of the Northern Illinois University baseball team watch as a highlight reel of their squad in action is played over the Jumbotron before the start of their game against Notre Dame at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University's Pat Minogue slides in safely to steal second base past Notre Dame second baseman Jeremy Barnes in the second inning of Wednesday night's game at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

NIU Takes Two

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The Northern Illinois University bench empties to welcome Jeff Thomas after he scored on a single by Danny Reed in a six-run sixth inning for the Huskies in their 14-11 victory in the first game of a doubleheader against Akron on Sunday afternoon. NIU won their second game by a score of 14-10.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University third baseman Jordin Hood blocks an incoming throw as Akron's Drew Turocy slides in to the base in the seventh inning of the Huskies 14-11 victory over the Zips in the top half of their doubleheader on Sunday afternoon in DeKalb.

One Hour With: Steve Franklin

ERIC SUMBERG | esumberg@daily-chronicle.com Steve Franklin, 23, is a pizza delivery man for World Famous Pizza in their Sycamore and DeKalb locations. "There is something gratifying about delivering a service to people," Franklin said as he drove the streets of Sycamore on Sunday evening delivering pies.

Editor's Note: This is the seventh in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Steve Franklin, 23, is a pizza delivery man for World Famous Pizza in Sycamore and DeKalb. Daily Chronicle Photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with him from 6-7 p.m. Sunday.

Slice of Life

A smattering of twenty-somethings work behind the counter on Sunday nights at World Famous Pizza, 124 E. State St. in Sycamore.

Pizza delivery man Steve Franklin, 23, meanders into the back of the shop a little after 6 p.m. He wears a five-o'clock shadow to go along with his Chicago Bears sweat shirt, a knit hat from a brewery in Colorado and an NIU memorial button on his vest.

“I'm a big Chicago sports fan in general,” said Franklin, who attends Kishwaukee Community College part time.

According to Franklin, being a pizza delivery man and a supporter of Chicago's professional teams go hand in hand. If you're delivering pies, you can catch the games on the radio. If you're working out of the DeKalb location of World Famous Pizza, which shares space in Lord Stanley's Annex, you can watch a game at the bar in the downtime between deliveries.

“It's partly one of the more enjoyable things about delivering pies,” Franklin said.

The DeKalb resident has been working for World Famous Pizza for more than three years. He started delivering because it fit well with his schedule at school and because he wanted some spending money. Most nights, he works in DeKalb, though he spends Sunday evenings in Sycamore.

“I enjoy working out in Sycamore. The tips always seem like they're a little bit better,” he said.

On a good night, he can deliver to 15 houses and pull in $60 to $70 in tips over a five-hour shift. But the ethos of Steve Franklin is less about quantity and more about quality. Quality of life, that is.

“I enjoy doing a service to society, but at the same time, I enjoy not working too hard,” he said as he waited for a second pizza to emerge from the oven at about 6:30 Sunday evening. “It can be a mentally stimulating job. You gotta be on top of everything.”

Like many delivery people before him, Franklin has a beef with people who don't tip.

“A lot of people, I don't know if they don't understand the concept of tips,” he said. “If you can afford to get a pizza delivered, why not throw the delivery guy a couple of bones?”

Like many other vehicle-based businessmen, Franklin and the rest of the World Famous Pizza fleet are grappling with the effects of the rising cost of fuel.

“The war in Iraq as it affects the pizza driver,” chimed Tyler McKellar, the store's weekend manager, as he came back to check on pizzas.

By 6:40 p.m., with two pies in his heat-retaining carrying case, Franklin was ready to hit the roads of Sycamore.

The odometer on his 1996 red Ford Escort wagon, piled high with old copies of the Chicago Sun Times and the Northern Star, a bottle of Scope, and some Pepto-Bismol, reads over 200,000.

“It's a pretty crappy car. Gas efficiency on it is what's key,” Franklin said. “I would deliver on a bike if I had a way of keeping the pies warm.”

The first stop on his route, a home on South Maple Street, went smoothly, a $2 tip included. The second pie, to a home on Maness Court, was undeliverable. More concerned than annoyed, he shifts his car into first gear, does a U-turn and calls the office to double-check the address. After Franklin makes a brief stop back at the restaurant, the customer calls to say she was at another location nearby.

“We deliver to these people a lot,” he said as he returned to his car. “It could be worse."

Triptych

Chronicle photos ERIC SUMBERG Juan Avila, 21, locks on to, bobbles and celebrates a touchdown pass from Alex Hunter during a pick-up football game at Sycamore Middle School on a wet and cold Saturday afternoon.

Above and Beyond

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Emily Halbesma, 25 (left), and Becky Brockschmidt, 20, stare at each other in mock seriousness as they race along the track at the Convocation Center underneath the letters of “Hope” during the seventh annual NIU Relay for Life on Friday evening. Organizers hoped that the walk, which went from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, would raise around $75,000 for the American Cancer Society.

Relay for Life

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

The participation rate has gone through the roof.

When Northern Illinois University held its first Relay for Life event in 2002, 13 teams took part. During this year's event, which was held Friday night and Saturday morning at the Convocation Center, 92 teams participated.

“I think the energy in this event is above and beyond,” Erin Koertgen, 30, a staff partner with the American Cancer Society, said Friday night at the Convo Center.

This year's NIU relay, which benefits the American Cancer Society, brought in about 1,000 participants who walked, ran, skipped and laughed their way around the oval track at the facility from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday.

Hundreds of relays are held throughout the country annually, and each follow the same format: It's an overnight event in which participants designate at least one team member at a time to walk or run on a track throughout the night.

The theme of this year's event at NIU was “Follow the Cancer Free Road,” a reference to the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” and several groups that set up a tent or blanket on the floor of the Convo Center took that to heart. Under one tent, for instance, was a pair of legs, recreating one of the movie's scenes involving the Wicked Witch of the West.

“I think it's the team creativity,” Koertgen said of what makes this event special. “They really get into it every year.”

Around 7:30 p.m. Friday, some groups of students were walking in packs, some arm in arm. NIU junior Becky Brockschmidt, 20, was walking with a group from the Public Relations Students Society of America. Both of her parents are cancer survivors, and she has done other benefits walks in the past, she said. Friday night was her first cancer walk at NIU.

“This is different for me because this is a longer-lasting thing,” she said. “You get to see who is involved and the energy coming off of them.”

Event organizers Blake Horras, a sophomore, and Theresa Hartman, a senior, expected the event would bring in about $75,000. During the last seven years, the NIU relay has raised more than $225,000.

Horras said this year's event had a special meaning in the wake of the Feb. 14 shootings on campus.

“I do think it is more special this year. It's showing the community that we can come together as a full community,” he said.

On the Convo Center floor, members of the NIU Athletic Trainers Student Association were fundraising by offering massages for $1 a minute, foot tapings for $3 and general evaluations for $5.

“We've had a few massages, no one for taping,” 23-year-old NIU junior Angela Silney said. “That's why we're taping ourselves.”

For a participant like Silney, as with most in the Convocation Center, the night was about having fun as well as battling a serious foe.

“It does make it more personal when you know somebody,” she said, adding her grandmother has cancer.

The night was broken up with events such as a luminaria ceremony for cancer survivors, as well as a small ceremony for those involved in the events of Feb. 14.

A fight back ceremony was scheduled for 3 a.m., where participants were asked to take a flag and make a pledge to fight back against one particular element of fighting cancer.

“The thought behind it is that cancer never sleeps, so for one night, neither do all of us,” Koertgen said.

Who Doesn't Like a Good Rain Photo?

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Candice Hendrikson of Sycamore runs along Main Street toward the Sycamore Public Library to return movies in a downpour on Thursday afternoon. DeKalb County should see more precipitation this weekend, as snow is forecast for both Friday and Saturday.

0-0

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb's Jassmine Marquez, left, battles for the ball with Plainfield North's Kate Lumb in the first half of their 0-0 tie on Monday afternoon at Dekalb High School.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb's Lissy Rogers, front, heads the ball away from Plainfield North's Kat Lipka in the second half of their 0-0 tie Monday afternoon in DeKalb.

Close Knit

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kristin Roach, 25, knits in the storefront of The Yarn Exchange on East Lincoln Highway in DeKalb on Monday afternoon. Monday was the first day in a month of performance art in which Roach will sit near the store window and knit items such as an afghan and backgammon board to literally and figuratively tie up loose strings before she graduates from Northern Illinois University in May. “It invites viewers to come into the yarn shop,” she said. “We’ll show people how to knit.”

See and Be Seen

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

As she has many times before, 25-year-old Northern Illinois University senior Kristin Roach sat quietly knitting.

But this time she was on display.

Monday marked the first day of nearly one month of Roach's planned live-performance art piece. She will tie up the loose strings of her time in DeKalb by knitting and crocheting in the storefront window of The Yarn Exchange at 134 E. Lincoln Highway.

“I decided I wanted to do an installation at The Yarn Exchange because I wanted it to be site-specific,” said Roach, who will graduate in May with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. “Plus, our front window display has always been a little lacking.”

Roach hails from Moline and moved to DeKalb in the summer of 2005 to pursue painting. She began knitting in the fall of that year and soon was coming to the Yarn Geeks, a gathering of local yarn enthusiasts who meet on Fridays at The Yarn Exchange.

“They taught me a lot about knitting,” Roach said. “From that I started writing my own patterns and really took to it. It was kind of uncanny.”

In January 2006, after an unsuccessful day of job hunting, Roach visited the store to buy yarn to help relieve her stress. Shop owner Sandi Gavin offered her a job on the spot, and she has been at work at the yarn shop and neighboring Encore Clothing ever since.

As a knitter who is an artist, Roach has taken a shine to creating patterns. She will likely have a pattern published in a craft magazine this fall and is a guest designer in an upcoming pattern book.

“I wanted to pay tribute to crafts and women,” Roach said of why she decided to create performance art out of her hobby and job. “I wanted to pay tribute to craft within an art context.”

At about 1 p.m. Monday, she set up shop in the store, which was closed. Using a frame in the store window, she first hung up her unfinished projects, which included an afghan, two sweaters, a tank top, a lace scarf, a backgammon board game and bag, a head wrap and a shawl.

Underneath each project was a pile of yarn, some of it expensive and some bought from a thrift store years ago, waiting to be used.

“It's kind of like a symbolic tying up of loose ends before I leave DeKalb,” Roach said as she knit a yellow scarf decorated with the Greek letters of her boyfriend's fraternity. “In theory I'll try to work through most of them. In theory.”

Roach plans on sitting in the shop window from 1-4 p.m. Monday through Thursday until May 1. The plan already has hit a couple of snags: Roach has been asked to teach spinning yarn for a lesson on medieval times at the DeKalb School District's Brooks Elementary School on Wednesday and has to fill in at Encore Clothing for a few hours on Thursday.

But the artist remains optimistic about her performances.

“I'm thinking during shop hours I'll invite people to come up and knit,” she said.

“It'll do what it's going to do,” she added. “Art is kind of a strange beast like that.”

One Hour With: G-K Track

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston High School shot-putters Jacob Dander, 14 (left) and Nick Farace, 17, work on their scales, where they use one side of their body to launch the shot up while the other side moves downward, at spring break track and field practice on Friday in Genoa. “It all has to snap at once to get the proper rotation,” Farace said.

Editor's note: This is the sixth in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. The Genoa-Kingston High School boys track and field team practices over their spring break at the high school. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with them from 10:00-11:00 a.m. Friday.

On Track

“You have to look up at the rainbow. Stay back. Much better! Take it back and let it rip!”

The voice of 10-year Genoa-Kingston High School track and field coach Philip Jerbi could be heard Friday over the din of discuses hitting the floor, shot puts landing on wood and pole vaults sliding along the ground.

G-K students are on spring break this week and while the majority of the more experienced runners, jumpers and throwers have gone en masse on a trip to Florida, a contingent of about 25 students remain for practice.

“Your block arm's got to drive through violently!” Jerbi emphatically explained to senior discus thrower Brad Hoepfner, 18, as he tossed his discus into a hanging divider in the school's gym. After a few more throws from his knees, Jerbi is pleased enough with the technique improvement to move on to the next thrower.

The 68-member Cog squad has been growing in recent years thanks to a 22-member senior class and a program that has been gaining momentum for a few years.

“Ten years ago I took over this team and we had 11 kids,” Jerbi said. “We had to build fun into track. I didn't make many kids throw up.”

Three years into his tenure Jerbi had about 30 students. Six or seven years in, he had more than 40. Now, with numbers well above 50, Jerbi is able to work his charges hard and to exploit the advantages of having a deep team.

“Now that our numbers have grown, we can get to that point,” Jerbi said. “Alumni come back and help out. You see them come back and it means we're doing something right. It speaks volumes of where we were and where we're going.”

One alumni helping out Friday was 19-year-old Miles Tischhauser, a student at Kishwaukee College. Tischhauser was a four-year pole vaulter under Jerbi and on Friday worked with a group of six vaulters on technique.

The build up to an actual jump is a series of technical maneuvers, Tischhauser said. Well before a person actually jumps with no safety net, they've done the motions hundreds of times.

“A lot of the vault techniques, there's a million different things that will mess up your vault,” Tischhauser said.

On Friday, he was working on a rope vault - essentially a rope swing on which vaulters practice their dismounting form. Some seemed to have the general idea, hanging without much tension in their arms as their legs swung through and they let go of the rope at its apex, falling gracefully onto the mat. Others hadn't learned how to let their body take over from their mind.

“Don's having a little bit of trouble with it. First thing is a pike, then a swing back and then turn like you're going over the pole,” he said as he watched one of the six freshmen vaulters the Cogs have in training.

Senior Jonathon Brust, 17, above, helped Friday with the technique work alongside Tischhauser, a former teammate whom he considers a mentor. Despite the fact that most of his senior-class teammates were on vacation, Brust said he was happy to be practicing.

“I guess that doing track is more important for me,” he said. “I'm just doing this for fun.”

Brust hopes to clear 12 feet this year, a height that Tischhauser jumped while at Genoa-Kingston. It's within reach, his coach thinks, if he continues to work on his technique and training.

“The more education you have, the more technique you can build,” Tischhauser said.

The field athletes left the gym around 10:40 a.m. to lift weights, weaving their way through a hallway filled with sweaty distance runners who had just finished their weight-lifting session with assistant coach Amy Freeman, a special-education teacher at the school. The runners had been outdoors all week, but Thursday's snowfall kept them off the track.

“The weather has not been cooperating,” Freeman said.

Distance runners in track events are not carbon copies of their pack-mentality cross-country running counterparts. Success is slightly more individual, as not every runner competes in every race. Despite a slightly different tack, they train together and push each other.

“When we have timed events, we use each other as competition,” Nathan Scott, 17, a senior, said as he stretched. “We want to do our best.”

The Cogs are an itchy group, ready for the winter to finally break so they can practice and compete as they want. The season opener, Tuesday at Harvard, is just days away.

“I can't wait for the meet. We've been working hard and hopefully that'll show,” Scott said.

One Hour With: Flo Ryan and Barb Williams

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Flo Ryan (front) and Barb Williams have worked at Davison’s Bakery in DeKalb for decades. “Our main job is keeping the customers happy,” Williams said. “You’re like family to them.”

Editor's note: This is the fifth in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Flo Ryan, 68, and Barb Williams, 73, are clerks at Davison's Bakery in DeKalb. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with them from 8:30-9:30 a.m. Friday.

Morning Tradition

“Age doesn't bother me a lot,” 68-year-old Flo Ryan said Friday when asked how old she was.

“You are what you are, right?” replied Barb Williams.

There is a gentle interplay between the two women who have been behind the counter of Davison's Bakery in DeKalb for more than three decades. Both have been dishing out doughnuts, cookies and loaves of bread for Bill Davison Sr., the shop's founder, and Bill Davison Jr., the bakery's current owner, since shortly after the store opened in 1960 at the corner of Fourth Street and East Lincoln Highway.

“At that time they had parking; they (customers) could run in and get a doughnut,” Williams said.

In 1981, the store moved to the DeKalb Shopping Center on Sycamore Road, where it's a storefront nestled between Big Lots and Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts.

The large baking area in the back of the bakery contains a table on which a young Bill Davison Jr. tried out his culinary skills, Williams recalls.

“I can remember him sitting on this table, making pies for his mother ... bless her heart, she ate it,” Williams said with a smile.

Now that the young baker is in charge of making the butter cookies and other sweets that have satisfied DeKalb area residents for years.

“He's here all night,” Ryan said. “He's the baker, the owner, the manager, everything.”

To be in Davison's on a weekday morning is akin to being in a well-stocked kitchen run by your two aunts. Customers come in and ask how Ryan and Williams are doing, and one of the clerks will fetch a dozen doughnuts or a cup of coffee, still only 40 cents - sometimes without being asked. Often, the clerks will inquire about customers' family and friends, and updates are provided.

“It's always been a family around here, a down-home bakery,” Williams said. “We're like sisters.”

Williams grew up in Big Rock and moved to DeKalb after getting married. She quit a job in Aurora to raise her children and started working part time at Davison's once her youngest was 5. She considers herself “semi-semi-retired.”

Ryan was raised in Malta and moved to DeKalb when she got married 48 years ago. She came to Davison's as a clerk.

“I like it. I love the people. I'm just happy with my life,” Ryan said.

The store opens at 6 a.m. six days each week, and the rush comes anywhere in the 7-9 a.m. time slot. At about 9:10 a.m. Friday, a customer entered the store.

“Debbie, how's she doing?” Ryan asked the woman.

“She has some good days and some bad days,” the customer replied.

While they were talking, Williams went to the back of the store to work on one of her specialties, the smiley-face cookies. The round sweet is more of a butter cookie than a sugar cookie. Williams coats them in frosting and then makes a funnel out of paper to add two blue frosting eyes and a smile. She's been making the cookies since the late 1960s.

“Everyone seems to think they taste better, but there's no taste in the frosting,” Williams said as she moved methodically down the two dozen cookies on her bake sheet. “It doesn't take a genius to do this. Sometimes it gets lumpy and then you have a problem.”

Ryan came into the back of the shop to take a tray of the cookies for the front. Williams called out to her, “Flo, I forgot, Milt called, he wants eight.”

“Can't forget Milt,” Ryan replied, her voice trailing off as she finished her thought while walking to the front of the shop. “Though he forgets us sometimes, forgets to take them with him ...”

One Hour With: Kelly Witt

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kelly Witt, 22, is a waitress at the Junction Eating Place on West Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. A former Northern Illinois University student, Witt hopes to return to California by the end of 2008 to continue her career as a media makeup artist. “This is my life,” Witt said in between serving customers Tuesday afternoon. “I wish I was outside, but being outside doesn’t pay the bills.”

Table Talk

Editor's note: This is the fourth in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Kelly Witt, 22, is a waitress at the Junction Eating Place in DeKalb. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with her from 2:30-3:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The life of a waitress on a quiet weekday at the Junction Eating Place on West Lincoln Highway in DeKalb largely centers around the providing and drinking of water.

Customers get water. Off-duty waitresses get water. Water spills from the appliances being fixed in the down hours.

Kelly Witt is the mover of water as well as the carrier of dishes and the dispenser of coffee. The 22-year-old Woodstock native left her hometown to work as a makeup artist in California after graduating from high school in 2003, doing makeup for people in the media and entertainment industries.

After a year there, she returned home, hoping to make it in the Chicago makeup world. After two years of freelance work and a full-time job at Aéropostale in the Prime Outlets in Huntley, she came to DeKalb in 2006 to study at Northern Illinois University. Within a short period, she found herself at the Junction Eating Place.

“I've always wanted to waitress, is that weird?” Witt asks.

An older gentleman sidles up to the counter and orders a special of ham and scalloped potatoes plus a cup of coffee. Witt smiles and fills his cup from a waiting pot. He doesn't ask her about her hair, but it is people like him who typically do, Witt says with a broad smile. Her “faux-hawk” is black and blond and careens around her head.

“The really old people say, ‘What do you use to put that up?'” she says, adding she uses a combination of gel and styling wax.

Witt hopes to move back to California in December to go back into the “makeup thing” again. They know her out there, she says, and it's her passion.

While she's here, however, she does her job with a smile on her face. She likes the freedom that working at a small establishment gives her.

“I like to walk up to my tables and say what I want,” Witt says in contrast to what she sees as the corporate culture of some restaurants in the area.

In between helping customers, Witt fetches a glass of water for an off-duty waitress who is lounging at the counter after checking her hours for the week.

“Oh, thank you,” Whitney Tamm, 22, says with a bit of surprise that her co-worker saw she perhaps needed a glass.

Witt's academic career is currently on hold, though she's not ready to say she has all that she needs.

“This is not what I want to be, but I made all the choices,” she says with a shrug.

“Some girls will come in here and be jaded in two months,” she says. “And there are others who will be completely content for the rest of their life.”

The day she gets jaded, Witt says, is the day she'll leave.

Two middle-aged men, regulars, come in and take a booth close to the door. Witt quietly snaps into action, fetching a cup of coffee and a glass of water for the table. She motions to a co-worker to ask if the customers take cream in their coffee. They do, and minutes later a few more customers come in as the late-afternoon lull is broken by the early-evening crowd.

Indoor Softball?

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG For the first time in IHSA history, a girls softball game was played indoors as the DeKalb Barbs played the East Aurora Tomcats in the DeKalb Park District’s Sports and Recreation Center on Tuesday afternoon. Barb junior pitcher Katelyn Sullivan, above, combined with Lisa Oller and Carlie Varga to pitch a no-hitter in the Barbs' season opening 15-1 victory over the Tomcats.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School senior second baseman Lexi Waite couldn't haul in this pop-up on the fly in the fourth inning, but she did recover to get the final out of the inning for the Barbs as they defeated the East Aurora Tomcats 14-1 on Tuesday afternoon.

Dimitri Liakos

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Dimitri Liakos stands among his more than 3,000 books at his home in DeKalb. He has been a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Northern Illinois University since 1967. An avid reader, traveler and educator, the Greek-born Liakos teaches about the classical civilizations of antiquity, often on location. "I love traveling, and seeing is believing,"

Two Car Accident

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Sycamore Fire Department personnel transport a woman into a waiting ambulance after her Jeep Grand Cherokee was hit by a Suzuki XL-7 about 10:45 a.m. Monday at the entrance to the parking lot of Blain’s Farm & Fleet on DeKalb Avenue in Sycamore.

To extricate the woman, the roof of her car was removed by Sycamore Fire Department personnel. She was then stabilized and transported about 100 yards via ambulance to a waiting helicopter that had landed in a cordoned-off area of the Blain's Farm & Fleet parking lot.

One Hour With: DeKalb FD

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb firefighters Todd Stoffa (standing), Bill Lynch (left) and Travis Karr have a dinner of barbecue chicken, potatoes and string beans Monday evening at the DeKalb Fire Department’s Fire Station 2 on South Seventh Street. The three men were about halfway through their 24-hour shift, which began at 7 a.m. Monday. “It’s a long 24 hours if you’re not having fun,” Stoffa said.

All in a Day's Work

Editor's note: This is the third in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Todd Stoffa, 32, Bill Lynch, 33, and Travis Karr, 24, are firefighters in the DeKalb Fire Department. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with them from 4-5 p.m. Monday.

It had been a busy morning and a slow afternoon. Todd Stoffa, Bill Lynch and Travis Karr, two veterans and a rookie, staffed the DeKalb Fire Department's Fire Station 2 on Monday. The station is a small, low-slung building at 1154 S. Seventh St.

At 4 p.m. Monday, it smelled of barbecue sauce, frying potatoes and garlic. Lots of garlic.

“Tabasco and garlic,” Lynch said when asked to name the seasonings of choice for DeKalb firefighters.

Monday evening was Lynch's turn to cook, though the St. Charles native likes to cook whenever he's on duty. Potatoes were on the menu Monday night, but Lynch loves to make fettuccine. He is convinced that he makes the best fettuccine in the entire department.

“There's only one guy who thinks he makes better fettuccine than me,” Lynch said. “That's Capt. (Eric) Hicks.”

However, Lynch added as a disclaimer that Capt. Hicks' favorite meal is pork roast with canned corn and mashed potatoes made with coffee creamer - not exactly gourmet fare.

The slow afternoon allowed the men to perform a thorough maintenance check on their fire engines. At about 4:45 p.m. a call went out for engines one and two to respond to a fire alarm at Castle Bank on Sycamore Road. When the three firefighters returned 20 minutes later, they stripped off their gear and headed straight back to preparing dinner, not missing a beat as they fired up the stove and set the table.

Karr has gained some fame because of an article that a well-known Web site on firefighting published regarding his role in responding to the Feb. 14 shootings on the DeKalb campus of Northern Illinois University. The soft-spoken Karr is hesitant to take credit.

“It got blown out of proportion,” he said quietly. “They called up and so forth and so on.”

Karr, a Lawrence, Kan., native, is one month away from being at the end of his probationary year in which he is tested every three months on various elements of firefighting. One component is a map test.

Firefighters must be able to name 25 of 30 streets among the 600 streets in the city of DeKalb. “The map test is tough,” Karr said.

Todd Stoffa is a 10-year veteran of the fire department and an Elburn native. Firefighting has been a tradition in his family.

“My grandpa and my dad both were (firefighters),” Stoffa said. “I basically grew up in a firehouse.”

While the members of this particular trio get along well, both Stoffa and Lynch rotate among DeKalb's three firehouses. There are a lot of different personality types, Stoffa said, and if you don't particularly like the guys you are with, it can be a long 24 hours. However, there isn't anywhere else these men would rather be.

“This is our life. Three hundred sixty-five days of the year,” Stoffa said. “It's just like anything else. You have good days and bad days.”

Dinner continued quietly as the three men devoured their chicken.

“Taters are good,” Lynch said, complimenting his own cooking.

DeKalb High School Badminton

Read the Article and Watch the Badminton Slideshow

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School sophomore Phoebe Cochrane, 16, reaches for a shot during the Barb's badminton team match against the South Elgin High School Storm last Thursday in DeKalb.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The Barbs gather for a pre-game cheer before taking on South Elgin High School last Thursday. For the past 35-plus years, badminton has been an Illinois High School Association sport, and during that time the Barbs have competed under just two coaches, Gert Brigham and Duane Cowley.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School badminton team manager senior Zak Effler, 18, plays with a birdie between transitions during practice on Thursday afternoon. "I go to the games and I cheer, that's what I do," Effler said.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School junior varsity coach Jen Hammarberg leans back to control the birdie during practice on Thursday afternoon. Hammarberg - a top four IHSA singles finisher as a senior at Downers Grove North - trained with the U.S. National Team while attending Northern Illinois University.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School senior Courtney Jossendal wears tie-dye socks during her match against South Elgin High School.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School junior Rebekah Guillotte, 17, laughs after being hit in the face by a birdie during badminton team practice on Thursday afternoon.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School freshman Siti Asna, 14, left, jogs through the halls of the school for conditioning with her junior varsity teammates.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The DeKalb High School badminton team practices in Chuck Dayton Gymnasium during their season which runs from mid-February through May.

Beauty in All Sizes

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University senior Megan Baldauf, 23, poses for communication graduate student Kristen Lou Herout, 23, for a project in which Herout takes photographs of voluptuous women mimicking mainstream fashion and commercial images. “I just want people of all sizes to be represented,” Herout said. “Why can’t we make it popular to not be skin and bones?”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Photographer Kristen Lou Herout bases her photos of voluptuous models on a sample of 30 fashion shots and advertisements she took from magazines such as Elle and Vogue. “Fashion is about being beautiful,” Herout said. “I think it’s fair to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Plus-size model Megan Baldauf poses for Northern Illinois University communication graduate student Kristen Lou Herout on Tuesday afternoon in Graham Hall on the DeKalb campus. “I always thought all sizes of women should be represented,” Baldauf said of why she volunteered to be photographed.

One Hour With: Tony Hoecherl

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Car sales consultant Tony Hoecherl speaks with a customer on the phone Tuesday afternoon in the showroom of Mike Mooney Chevrolet-Cadillac Inc. on North Fourth Street in DeKalb. “You meet a lot of good people,” Hoecherl said of his more than 20 years in the car sales business at various dealerships in DeKalb County.

Motor Man

Editor's note: This is the first in an occasional series chronicling an hour in the life of DeKalb County residents. Tony Hoecherl, 46, is a car sales consultant at Mike Mooney Chevrolet-Cadillac Inc. in DeKalb. Daily Chronicle photographer Eric Sumberg spent time with him from 3-4 p.m. Tuesday.

“I started selling in 1985 with Jim Kornak. I ended up selling a couple of cars before I was a salesman. I'd already established a relationship with all the service people. That's when Jim came in and said, ‘Why don't you just sell?'”

It's been more than 22 years, and Tony Hoecherl hasn't stopped selling since. The Sycamore native has been around cars since he was a kid - his first job was at State Street Motors in Sycamore working as a porter on Saturdays.

Since then he's worked for Jim Kornak Chevrolet in Sycamore, Brian Bemis Chevrolet in Sycamore and now Mike Mooney Chevrolet-Cadillac Inc. at 204 N. Fourth St. in DeKalb.

“My first car that I sold was a 1984 S-10 pickup for five or six grand. I sold 12 vehicles that first month; four (customers) are still buying cars from me,” Hoecherl said.

Each month has its ups and downs. Business is slow this week for Hoecherl, but last month he sold 20 cars.

“Everyone always thinks you're doing nothing all day, but I'm going to be here until eight at night,” he said.

A lifelong bachelor, Hoecherl marvels that his married co-workers can keep their relationships alive despite the hours.

“You spend more time with these guys than you do your spouse,” he said with a laugh.

His desk sits next to the glass door entrance to the showroom. On the desk are a coffee mug from “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” a closed Rolodex, a phone, a computer and a calculator.

“Not knowing what you're going to make each week makes me nuts. It's hard to budget anything,” he said. “I came in when things were starting to get tough. Years ago, if you wanted to get a car, you had to drive someplace. It's dog-eat-dog out there.”

Hoecherl is worried about the recently volatile economy, but not overly so.

“It takes us a long time to be affected by a recession. It slows down, but the car business has been off for years,” he said. “There's more and more companies. People can choose from so many vehicles out there.”

Hoecherl doesn't own a car - he drives vehicles from the lot.

“Repeat (sales) is what it's all about,” Hoecherl said of the importance of good service. “You might not like everyone you meet, but why would I sit here and do something to you when I'm going to go out the next night and see you?”

Even a person who spends all day selling must have some time off.

“If I go out on a date, I've got to go far,” he said of getting away from work. “I was in Cancun three years ago with six people and I'm standing in the pool. Some guy says, ‘I should know you, you from Chicago?' I said, no, about 60 miles west. ‘Oh, you work at Mike Mooney,' he said. My friends just fainted in the water.”

His job has changed significantly since he began selling in 1985. A lot of what he does now is certification testing by car companies that require salesmen to know about everything in a car from tires to wipers to GPS.

He regrets little about his job, but “If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably be in parts. The hours are better.”

A final thought.

“Buy American.”

Cyclepeople

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Cyclists Brian Van (front), Aaron Nevdal (center) and Mike Haji-Sheikh pedal up one of the few hills in DeKalb County on Sunday afternoon, on Pleasant Road east of Cortland. The trio is part of an informal group of cyclists who gather at North Central Cyclery to go for long rides in DeKalb County. “It’s a little better way to see the world, on two wheels,” Nevdal said.

The Wheels of DeKalb County

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

It's most dangerous at the start.

Though they ride for hours at a time, covering dozens of miles on the roads of DeKalb County, the most perilous part of a 30-mile bike ride for Mike Haji-Sheikh, 48, Brian Van, 48, and Aaron Nevdal, 30, is when they congregate behind North Central Cyclery near East Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. A stop sign for traffic exiting the post office is largely ignored, and drivers whip through the corner there onto Girard Street.

“People look at you like you're in the way,” said Haji-Sheikh with a bemused smile.

To their credit, they are hard to miss, with their flashy Lycra, wraparound sunglasses and colorful helmets. Haji-Sheikh was joined by fellow cyclists Van and Nevdal for a pleasant ride to the north and east of DeKalb on Sunday afternoon to train for “the base.” Base refers to aerobic base, or the process of training at 60 to 75 percent of one's maximum heart rate to increase endurance. The three are part of an informal group which can number anywhere from two to 15 who ride for fun and sport in DeKalb County.

“The more the merrier,” Nevdal said of whether others can join their group.

Nevdal is a physical therapist at Northern Rehab in DeKalb and is a year-round cyclist. He caught the riding bug after renting a mountain bike on a trip to Wyoming after his high school graduation. He rode while at Northern Illinois University, where he graduated in 2001 with a bachelor's degree and in 2002 with a master's degree, and he's kept on riding.

When not on the pavement, he trains indoors. He tries to put in anywhere from 80 to 170 miles per week, depending on the weather, time and motivation. Riding allows him time to think to himself and offers the occasional “Zen moment,” he said.

DeKalb's riding scene is based around the North Central Cyclery, though the store does not sponsor an official racing team. Part of the reason, according to Van, is that in order to sponsor a team, the store would have to host an event, which would require a number of additional steps, including insurance and permits.

For now, riders meet informally and train for events such as the Hillsboro-Roubaix Road Race, a 22-mile loop over rural roads and brick streets that takes place March 31 in Hillsboro. Van intends to ride in that race for his squad, Team Mack Racing, though Haji-Sheikh thought that might be a bit early for him.

“I'm thinking about coming with the ambulance,” he said.

Sunday's ride was a more relaxed affair after last Thursday's 45-mile slow-time trial pace ride that left the group meandering into town at a piddling 14 miles per hour. It's not about the speed, though, for this group.

“It's the most fun you can have wearing Lycra,” Haji-Sheikh said.

First Cuts

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Jai Sharma, 31, of DeKalb takes his first swings of the year Friday afternoon at the driving range at Joe Manczko’s Sycamore Family Sports Center. The range opened Thursday, and all of the facilities will be open by Saturday, despite the snow on the ground. “We’ve never had snow when we opened,” manager Joe Manczko Jr. said.

Spring Drive

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

It has been 20 months since Jai Sharma last swung his clubs.

Two Army tours in Iraq, a prolonged Illinois winter and the start of classes at Northern Illinois University conspired to keep the 31-year-old off the links - and off the driving range, for that matter.

“I haven't gotten to play in a while,” Sharma said. “All last summer I was in the big sand trap.”

Spring apparently has sprung, despite the snow on the ground and at least two natural disasters, at Joe Manczko's Sycamore Family Sports Center, 725 E. State St. In August, the property, which sits on a floodplain, was submerged when the Kish-waukee River overflowed its banks. In early December, the driving range safety net became covered in ice from a storm, causing the 70-foot supporting posts to buckle under the weight.

“The flood was just a lot of cleanup and power washing,” manager Joe Manczko Jr. said of the water that closed down the facility for eight days.

The posts were a bit more complicated. Some of the wooden poles are now on the north side of the property, and there are 14 new metal posts on the property's south side, which borders State Street. The process of moving the old poles and installing the new ones at a depth of 15-18 feet took about two weeks to complete.

“I'm just happy they fell onto the field,” Joe Manczko Jr. said. “What are you going to do? It could have been a lot worse.”

Despite those setbacks, the driving range opened Thursday, and Manczko expects the go-cart course, soccer and batting cages, and miniature golf course to open Saturday. They typically open the first week in March, weather permitting.

“It's not a late start, but we're a little behind,” the younger Manczko said. “People don't know that we're open yet.”

With Friday's balmy weather, more than a few golfers took the opportunity to get out the kinks of winter. Justin Mehaffey, 24, of Sycamore described himself as “not a golfer” but perhaps a lover of driving ranges, where he said he worked when he was younger.

“First day this year, first swing,” Mehaffey said as he teed up a ball. “I come to the driving range for fun.”

Mehaffey's first ball went just 10 feet into the air, landing three feet in front of him.

The Family Line

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University women’s sophomore golfer Kim Bailey, is known for her touch on the greens in addition to being a part of an NIU family tradition. Her sisters Jackie and Lisa played women’s golf at NIU and her mother, Teresa Bailey, was a teammate of current NIU head coach Pam Tyska when they attended Illinois State University in the early 1980s.

To Protect and Serve

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Haider Thahab, 35, emigrated from his native Iraq to America in September 2007 with his wife and four children after serving for four years as an interpreter for the U.S. Army. Thahab, who met Northern Illinois University Police Chief Donald Grady while both were working in Iraq, is now working in computer-based forensics for the NIU police department. “He is a special person,” Grady said.

Haider Thahab

Story and Photographs by Eric Sumberg

The events of Feb. 14 at Northern Illinois University were unexpected and horrific. They were perhaps unlike anything that most people in the NIU community had ever seen. But not Haider Thahab.

Thahab, 35, has spent his adult life protecting others. He has served in the Iraqi police force, worked as a translator with the U.S.-led coalition forces and survived an assassination attempt during his 18-year career in public service.

So when Thahab, who moved to America in September, heard over his police radio in the NIU Public Safety building that there was a gunman on campus, he reacted as he had been trained.

Thahab, who works in NIU's police department as a computer forensics employee, saw Police Chief Donald Grady and two lieutenants run toward the center of campus. He followed.

When they reached one of the bridges over the Kishwaukee River near Cole Hall, the site of the shooting, Grady stopped to analyze the situation. He turned and was stunned to see Thahab standing behind him. Grady said he told him to return immediately to the NIU Public Safety building.

“What are you doing here?” Grady recalled asking Thahab. “You have no gun!”

Grady recalls that Thahab looked at him with an expression that said, ‘I can't go back.'

Born in Baghdad in 1972, Thahab joined the Iraqi police force in 1990. He graduated second in his class as a lieutenant in 1993 from police college, then enrolled in the University of Technology in the computer electronics department. Four years later he graduated with a bachelor's degree, and in 1999, he completed a master's degree in computer engineering.

During that time, he was an Iraqi police officer, eventually rising to the rank of major. During the first Gulf War, any person who was in the police didn't join the army. But in 2003, when the U.S. Army secured Baghdad, the coalition forces ordered all police officers to return to service.

In May 2003, Thahab was selected to be the coordinator between the Iraqi minister of the interior and the U.S. Army. Thahab worked in several capacities, including training Iraqi police, diplomatic protection, counterterrorism and intelligent database design.

It was in this job that Thahab met Grady early in the NIU police chief's tour in Iraq, which ran from September 2006 to September 2007.

Grady was working in Iraq in a nonoperational position as a senior adviser on civilian policing and institution building to the Iraqi minister of the interior in addition to advising the U.S. ambassador.

Grady is impressed with Thahab's character.

“They cannot make a good police organization without the people with the right moral fiber,” Grady said.

“Haider happened to be one of the people who was liaising. He was a police officer then - we called him Major Haider. It was really good to see someone of his intellect working with the coalition,” Grady said. “We had a pretty good rapport right from the start; he was just a genuinely good man.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Haider Thahab was among the first police officers on the scene of the Feb. 14 shootings on the campus of Northern Illinois University. Here, outside of Cole Hall, the site of the murders, Thahab works to keep the front of the building clear of civilians.

--

In January 2007, Thahab was driving in Baghdad when a vehicle pulled up next to him. Militia men opened fire on his car with AK-47s. He fell to the floor of his vehicle, feigning death, while his car rolled slowly down the road.

He was immediately afraid, both because of the attack and his affiliation with the coalition. The hospital he was treated at was run by the same militia that had made the attempt on his life. The man who tried to kill him followed him to the hospital.

Though Thahab survived the attack and was given an award by the U.S. Army for his bravery, he immediately moved his wife and four boys, ages 9, 7, 5 and 4, to the safety of northern Iraq. He never again left the Green Zone, the heavily fortified area where coalition forces are based in the center of Baghdad, without military protection.

In August, Thahab approached Grady. According to the Iraqi Afghani Special Immigrant Visa Translator Program enacted in 2006, Thahab and his family were eligible for naturalization in the United States with the sponsorship of one of Thahab's commanding officers, Col. Mark French.

“Haider said to me one day, ‘I'm coming to America and I want to come where you are,'” Grady said. “He took a bullet for this country. He went the extra mile. He didn't stop doing the job. He came to work every day. How would I say no to that?”

Grady said he promised Thahab and his family nothing more than to get them settled. He would have to compete for a job at the police department like anybody else.

In August, Thahab took a plane to Jordan where he arranged his visa at the embassy in Amman. He met his family there and they flew to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and then came to DeKalb.

“I got very important things here. I got the future for my kids,” Thahab said. “I'm happy to be here. I'm going to start a new life here.”

Thahab said he's been surprised at how kind the people of DeKalb have been.

“It is easy to find a place, it is difficult to find good people,” he said.

Thahab rents a house in DeKalb with his family and was welcomed by NIU's police department with a dinner when he arrived. Thahab is pleased the school district has assigned his children an interpreter to help their transition from speaking and reading Arabic to English. Once all of his children start attending school, his wife will likely look for a job at NIU.

At the police department, Thahab develops databases and works with fingerprinting technology. He has used his educational background and real-world experience to help merge the operations of a number of departments into one.

“His computer skills are very advanced,” NIU Police Sgt. Larry Ellington said. “Haider is able to go in and dig a little deeper.”

Ellington hopes that Thahab will eventually apply to become an officer in the department.

“A lot of what we do here is to get him ready,” Ellington said. “He's being groomed.”

Thahab said helping the community is what he was born to do.

“It is very important to serve the people, it doesn't matter how,” he said.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Haider Thahab scans the fingerprints of Northern Illinois University sophomore education major Michelle Welsh, 19, for identification purposes related to her teaching at the NIU police department on a recent weekday. "Even though he's a citizen employee, he's still very involved with campus investigations," said Sgt. Larry Ellington.

Splashdown

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kent Maercker, 13, of Sycamore braces for impact after riding over a ramp on a tricycle with a broken back wheel along Fair Street on Wednesday afternoon. Maercker was playing in the relative warmth with Ben Crobbe, 8, and Taylor Hamilton, 9, in the driveway of Keith Crobbe as the sun slowly set. Each hopped on and off their toys of choice, including bikes and scooters. Though it isn't July yet, Crobbe seemed to feel that time was close.

“The kids seem to gather here in the summertime,” Keith Crobbe said.

Staying Afloat

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb resident and TAILS Humane Society volunteer Lou Voegtle struggles to keep Chief (left) and Laila going in the right direction during their morning walk along Barber Greene Road in DeKalb on Thursday. Non-profit organizations such as TAILS depend on volunteers to help them remain viable in difficult economic times.

10 Years of Helping Feed DeKalb

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG More than 200 bowls were made by students in the Northern Illinois University ceramics department for Wednesday’s 10th annual Empty Bowls event on campus to raise money for the Hope Haven homeless shelter in DeKalb.

Empty Bowls

Story and Photographs by Eric Sumberg

Joan Quinn has been collecting handmade ceramic bowls from the annual Empty Bowls event for so long, she had to build a new cupboard for them at home.

Wednesday gave Quinn, coordinator of the Food Systems Laboratory at Northern Illinois University, a chance to add again to her prodigious collection of colorful and quirky bowls. The 10th annual Empty Bowls event presented by the Student Dietetic Association and the NIU ceramics department raised more than $2,000 for Hope Haven homeless shelter in DeKalb. Bowls of chicken noodle, minestrone, broccoli cheddar and vegetarian gumbo soups were paired with fresh bread as more than 150 people came out to help a good cause while collecting a one-of-a-kind bowl.

Stu Brandon, 37, of Syca-more was at the 4:30 p.m. sitting with sons Elliott, 9, and Colin, 13. They attended the event last year for the first time and came back this year because they like giving back to the community, Brandon said.

They also came back because Brandon's wife liked the bowls so much, he said.

NIU seniors Amy O'Dea, 21, and Kenna Sorenson, 21, sat with December 2007 graduate Abby Westrom, 23, near the window of the Chandelier Room in Adams Hall enjoying their soup. Sorenson is studying psychology and contemplating a second major in art. She made 13 of the more than 200 bowls offered this year, she said. According to Sorenson, the bowls take about 15 minutes to shape, but the process of firing, glazing and firing again takes about a week.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University seniors Amy O'Dea, 21, and Kenna Sorenson, 21, chat over bowls of soup on Wednesday afternoon.

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“I had to remake a lot of them because they were ruined over the break,” Sorenson said about the week the university closed due to the Feb. 14 shootings on campus.

Westrom, former president of the Student Nursing Associ-ation on campus, drove from Aurora to support Sorenson's art and give what she could to Hope Haven. The recent graduate used to volunteer at the shelter and knows what a difference events like this can make, she said.

“They really appreciate it because they get a lot of support from this campus,” Westrom said, adding that she thought it was nice to be at any event that gets people on campus together to do something positive.

About 30 members of the Student Dietetic Association helped prepare and serve the food Wednesday, association president Kyle King, 23, said. The association is typically made up of students majoring in nutrition and dietetics.

“We've done a few drives for (Hope Haven),” King said. “We like to help them out as much as we can. It's a good cause for us.”

Association member Kate Dienst, 22, was stationed at the door taking donations from the first wave of diners. Almost all of the 68 people who attended the first sitting selected a bowl that struck their fancy. Dienst noted that the shiny, ornamental and big bowls went first. While she planned on paying for a bowl later, she didn't have a particular one in mind.

“I didn't want to get attached to one and have someone take it,” she said.

Midsummer in Late Winter

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest are among the characters in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The Northern Illinois University School of Theatre and Dance’s production of the Shakespearean play will include performances at 7 p.m. March 18-20 and 27-29 at the Players Theatre in the Stevens Building.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG John McFarlane portrays Theseus, the duke of Athens, in the Northern Illinois University School of Theatre and Dance’s production of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

At Last

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG DeKalb High School music instructor Reuben Cooper Jr. smiles as he holds an apple in his hand to signify that his 18-member jazz ensemble, including George Reo (center left) and Luis Guerrero (center right), will be heading to New York City. The ensemble is one of 15 bands selected for the annual Essential Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival to be held May 15-17. Cooper surprised his class by announcing the honor in front of members of the media and DeKalb School District officials during the sixth-period class Tuesday.

DeKalb Jazz Hits a High Note

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Students in Reuben Cooper Jr.'s jazz ensemble class at DeKalb High School thought members of the media were in their sixth-period class Tuesday to do a story on the veteran music teacher.

But they were really there to capture students' reactions to Cooper's surprise announcement: After six years of trying, the DHS Jazz Ensemble has been accepted into the Essential Ellington High School Jazz Band Competition and Festival in New York City.

The annual competition, to be held May 15-17, is like the Super Bowl of high school jazz, according to Cooper. Only one other high school in Illinois, Champaign Central High School, will be attending.

“It's the highest,” Cooper said. “Every group that goes is going to sound good.”

Baritone saxophone player Amanda Harness, 16, was overwhelmed by the news.

“I don't even know what to do with myself right now. This is amazing. It's overwhelming,” she said.

Cooper, who has been teaching music at DeKalb High School for eight years, is a lifelong musician who has performed at such legendary New York City venues as the Apollo Theater and Studio 54, with groups including KC and the Sunshine Band.

His jazz ensemble, consisting of five saxophonists, four trombonists, five trumpeters and four rhythm performers, won a competition in San Antonio last year. And this year, their recordings and soloists have really taken off.

“All of the group are outstanding,” Cooper said. “It's a huge accomplishment.”

The excitement over news of the selection was palpable. Astonished students hugged and high-fived each other as the reality of the news sank in.

“There's a lot of really good bands out there,” trumpeter Lisa Oller, 16, said. “I'm really excited but I'm scared because I think we're going to be flying.”

Oller was right - they will be flying. To defray costs, the ensemble will embark on a fundraising drive and will play a number of gigs around town. DeKalb High School Principal Lindsey Hall described the school's music boosters program as supportive and active. The costs, whatever they may be, seem to be worth bearing.

“Our whole fine-arts program is exceptional, and that is due to the work of Reuben Cooper and our teachers,” Hall said. “I think (the selection) reinforces that hard work pays off.”

Matt Nagy, a 17-year-old tenor saxophone player, agreed.

“We've been working toward this a long time. It's amazing that we actually did it,” he said.

Smltwn

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG With warmer weather approaching, skateboarders like 2-year-old Elijah DeMaio — seen being held up to the countertop by his father, Chuck DeMaio — have to practice wherever they can. Smltwn Sk8board Shop, a 10-month-old store on East Lincoln Highway in DeKalb, is preparing for what owners Ariel Ries and Jason McLemore hope will be a strong market for skateboard gear this spring. “We’re trying to target a market larger than skateboarders,” Ries said.

Boards in Bloom

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Elijah DeMaio is a 2-year-old with skateboards on the brain.

Scampering around Smltwn Sk8board Shop at 229 E. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb, the toddler whined to his father, 29-year-old Chuck DeMaio, when he couldn't find his favorite toy board Monday afternoon.

He calls his favorite board “Dada.” He calls his father “Chuck.”

Devotion to skateboarding is not a new phenomenon, but catering to devotees is relatively new in the DeKalb County retail scene. Smltwn, pronounced “small town,” has been operating out of a storefront between Web Girl Web Designs and the Simply Posh antique store in downtown DeKalb since May 2007. The store's owners, 23-year-old Ariel Ries and 32-year-old Jason McLemore, are preparing for their first full spring of sales.

“Since January, we've seen a steady increase,” McLemore said. “This is usually the month where we'll see the biggest sales increase, between now and May.”

The pair of entrepreneurs almost didn't make it this far. An October fire in the store damaged goods, destroyed paperwork and mangled their computer system. Ries puts a positive spin on the event by saying that they needed more inventory anyway.

The store is trying to reach a demographic beyond young skaters.

“If you wear shoes, you can shop here. If you wear shirts, you can shop here,” McLemore said.

Boards at the store cost anywhere from $60-170 for a “complete,” which includes the deck, trucks and wheels. Smltwn's owners have even created their own branded decks, shirts, hats and hoodies complete with the quintessential symbol of DeKalb - a flying ear of corn.

As skateboarder culture becomes increasingly popular in the DeKalb area, McLemore and Ries are looking forward to another year of promoting the lifestyle. Fears that skateboarders will overrun the downtown area are unfounded, McLemore said. The shop organizes group trips to local skateboarding sites, like Katz Park on Dresser Road and an outdoor asphalt hockey court on the Northern Illinois University campus.

One teen who may take advantage of those trips is Keerti Ballantine, 14, of DeKalb. Ballantine has been skateboarding for two years and was scanning the shop's wall of shoes Monday afternoon. He said he bought a board and a DVD from the store in the past, but on Monday he was looking for new clothes to wear when he hits the concrete in a few weeks.

“I can't wait until the snow melts,” he said.

Smltwn is the only store in DeKalb County dedicated solely to skating gear and accessories, according to McLemore.

“The response from everyone that's stopped in is really positive,” he said. “The majority are new customers, and they're shocked. It's different from everyone else here.”

The $12 Million Dollar Man

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Edward K. Jones (right), 55, holds a ceremonial check for $12.25 million from the Illinois Lottery with two of his children, Morgan Haywood, 27, and Edward Jones Jr., 37, at the Schnucks supermarket on Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb on Thursday afternoon. Jones, a machinist for Caterpillar for the last 35 years, has already purchased two motorcycles, two cars and two homes since winning the Lotto jackpot Feb. 9.

Sharing the Wealth

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Now that he's won the lottery, Edward K. Jones has made a promise.

“I made a promise to God I'd quit (gambling),” Jones, 55, said with a smile at a news conference held Thursday afternoon at the Schnucks supermarket on Annie Glidden Road in DeKalb to announce his $12.25 million Lotto jackpot win.

God is apparently a large presence in the Chillicothe resident's life. He said he was planning on giving “quite a bit” of his take-home amount of $7,561,729 - taking a lump sum now means he'll pay less in taxes - to his church, Faith Christian Centre in Washington, Ill.

As for deciding what to do with the rest of his earnings, Jones appears to have been on a small, for a multimillionaire, spending spree since he discovered that he won the Lotto drawing Feb. 9.

He's added two Harley-Davidson motorcycles to the one that he already owns and also purchased two Dodge Magnum cars. On top of that, Jones is now the owner of two homes, one in Nevada, where he has family, and one in Florida, because it's a nice place, he said.

The afternoon of Feb. 9 began for Jones as some have previously, as he helped a cousin to deliver fliers to Schnucks in DeKalb. He purchased his Lotto ticket and some fruit.

“I'm going to buy me two Quick Picks because there's always winners around Chicago,” Jones recalls thinking.

That evening, the winning numbers were announced, and Jones' first reaction was disbelief.

“I didn't believe it. (The amount) had too many zeroes on it,” he said.

Jodie Winnett, Illinois Lottery's acting superintendent, was on hand Thursday to help present Jones his check. Also at the conference were DeKalb Mayor Frank Van Buer and Schnucks store officials.

“The winners take all sorts of avenues with this,” Winnett said in response to a question concerning whether the Illinois Lottery advises winners on whom to consult regarding managing their money. “It's difficult for us to suggest anybody.”

Schnucks, which opened its doors in early December, has seen an uptick in customers buying lottery tickets since the announcement of its sale of the winning ticket, service center manager Becky Kapfer said.

Jones said he's quitting his job.

“March 1, I'm done,” the Peoria native said.

Jones decided to take the lump sum payment. With wife Julie, six children, six grandchildren, five brothers and sisters and a “million” cousins, Jones said he is keeping his financial advising within the family.

“It's going to change his life more than mine,” daughter Morgan Haywood said.

Cole Hall to be Demolished

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG A crowd of hundreds came to a news conference Wednesday to listen to plans announced by Northern Illinois University President John Peters and Gov. Rod Blagojevich to demolish Cole Hall, at rear, the site of the Feb. 14 shooting that left five NIU students and the gunman dead and 16 other people wounded. Blagojevich plans to ask the state Legislature for $40 million to build a new academic building, to be named Memorial Hall, in its place.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Members of the Northern Illinois University community listen to a Wednesday press conference by NIU president John Peters and Gov. Rod Blagojevich to demolish Cole Hall.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University president John Peters answers questions from NIU students and members of the media following a press conference on Wednesday in which he and Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced a plan to demolish Cole Hall, the site of a multiple-homicide on Feb. 14. Peters expressed confidence that the funding for the building would make it through the Illinois legislature. “It will pass,” Peters said after the news conference.

NIU Internship Fair

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University statistics graduate students Jin Lei (left), 27, and Ken Choi, 23, chat during NIU’s Spring Internship Fair on Wednesday as they walk among representatives of companies looking for interns. More than 90 employers set up shop on campus to attract NIU students to careers in such fields as engineering, food service, the armed services and entertainment.

Time to Look

Story and Photographs by Eric Sumberg

Two clean-cut young people participating in Northern Illinois University's Spring Internship Fair stood Monday at the booth for Phillips, the multinational corporation that makes everything from consumer electronics to high-tech medical machines.

The pair - 24-year-olds Ameya Shrotriya and Divya Vangari - had moved just a few feet from where they were last year at NIU's Convocation Center in DeKalb. Instead of being applicants for jobs, the NIU electrical engineering graduate student alumni were the interviewers.

“We don't understand why we were so nervous last year,” Shrotriya said.

“On the other side, we're much more relaxed,” Vangari chimed in.

The annual internship fair for NIU students was held Wednesday afternoon on the Convocation Center's track level. More than 90 employers from Walgreen Inc. to Six Flags Theme Parks Inc. set up booths replete with flashy displays, free pens, canvas bags and the potential for a summer internship.

Robert Sanko, 23, had his résumé in hand while he stood in line for an interview with a representative of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Sanko was joined by his fraternity brothers Jared Tryon, 22, and Rod Russell, 21. Sanko already has an undergraduate degree in business administration but is working toward a second degree in finance with a minor in economics. After a five-minute speech from the bank representative, Sanko went to visit other businesses' booths.

“It was interesting,” Sanko said. “It's such a powerful organization, they're like the rule-makers. I'd definitely like to do an internship there.”

The head of the show, NIU Career Services Executive Director Cindy Henderson, was happy with the turnout and the feel of Wednesday's event.

“We have all of our favorites here,” she said.

The companies that come to NIU are looking for students who know how to handle themselves in the workplace, she said.

“They (employers) say that NIU students are well-prepared academically, socially ... they're serious,” Henderson said. “They have a sense of purpose.”

NIU alumni are everywhere at fairs like this, said Christine Stakal, the academic program adviser and marketing internship coordinator for the department of marketing within the College of Business. She counted five former NIU students within a 10-foot radius of where she was standing in the Convocation Center.

One student who may soon be one of those alumni is Ken Choi, 23, a statistics graduate student from Rolling Meadows set to graduate in May 2009.

The recruiter from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. seemed nice, Choi said.

However, as a veteran of job fairs, Choi has learned recruiters' jargon.


“A lot of times if they're not looking for specific opportunities, they say, ‘Go online,'” Choi said.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University students Jared Tryon (left), 22, and Robert Sanko, 23, have their resumes in hand as they wait to speak with a representative of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago at the Spring Internship Fair at NIU’s Convocation Center on Wednesday afternoon.

Northern Returns to School

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Patrol Officer Greg Minx of the Illinois State Police walks past a student on Northern Illinois University’s DeKalb campus Monday, the first day of classes after the university closed for more than a week following the Feb. 14 shootings in Cole Hall. Minx said there were five patrol officers on campus throughout the day.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG For some students, Monday was the first day back on campus since the Feb. 14 shootings. Thousands of flowers, handwritten notes and mementos lay at the base of a memorial near King Commons.

NIU Memorial Service Draws Thousands

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Thousands of members in the Northern Illinois University and DeKalb-area communities lined up outside of the Convocation Center on Sunday afternoon before a memorial service for the five students slain on the NIU campus Feb. 14.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Attendees at Sunday evening's memorial service for those slain on Feb. 14 were processed through metal detectors and asked not to bring bags or purses as security measures were heightened in the wake of the shootings.

Northern Illinois University sophomores Amy Haefneru, left, and Eric Duffek embrace inside the Convocation Center on Sunday evening before the start of the memorial service for those slain on the NIU campus Feb. 14.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Family members of those slain on the Northern Illinois University campus were given white flowers to hold during the memorial service at the Convocation Center on Sunday evening.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University President John Peters embraces his wife, Barbara Peters, after welcoming a crowd of more than 10,000 to the Convocation Center on Sunday night for a memorial service for those slain on campus Feb. 14. “For all of those who seek healing, your presence here tonight wraps us in a warm embrace and reminds us that we are not alone,” Peters said. “We are not islands, but bridges — bridges to each other and bridges to the world.”

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University staff and faculty were given seating on the arena floor at the Convocation Center for Sunday evening's memorial service.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill) entered the Convocation Center during the student memorial service for those slain on Feb. 14 as a representative of the state of Illinois.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG It was an emotional evening of reflection as the five Northern Illinois University students slain on Feb. 14, Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant, Ryanne Mace, and Daniel Parmenter, were remembered at the Convocation Center on Sunday.

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Audience members were asked to light small lights to create a sea of illumination during the singing of the Northern Illinois University fight song "Alma Mater" at the conclusion of Sunday's memorial service.

Jordin Hood, Cancer Survivor

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Jordin Hood, a cancer survivor and the starting second-baseman for the Northern Illinois University baseball team, takes batting practice on the university campus on Wednesday. Hood, 20, was diagnosed with testicular cancer as a sophomore at Lake Zurich High School and says that the ordeal changed the way he lives his life. "Even if you have something bad in your life, you can accomplish things and succeed," he said.


Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University sophomore Jordin Hood attends a Contemporary Social Institutions sociology class at DuSable Hall on the morning of Feb. 14.


Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University baseball player Jordin Hood, right, walks with his girlfriend Kim Bailey, 19, after class on Feb. 14. Hood, 20, survived a bout with testicular cancer to become a recruited athlete and starting second-baseman for the Huskie squad. "He's a kind of laid back person," Bailey said. "He's very caring about the people who matter to him."


Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University baseball player Jordin Hood attaches a memorial sticker for those killed during the Valentine's Day shootings on campus at a baseball practice on Thursday. "It's scary thinking about what happened," Hood said. "It kind of opened my eyes a lot, don't take things for granted."

The Run Ends for G-K

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston guard Jimmy Lopez drives into Aurora Christian's Joe Redmond in the first quarter of the Aurora Christian regional final in Aurora on Friday night.


Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG The Genoa-Kingston bench and Cog fans are sullen as the final seconds tick off of the clock on the Cogs' season.


Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Genoa-Kingston guard Scott Suchy covers his head with his jersey after the final seconds of the Cogs' 58-52 loss to the Aurora Christian Eagles 58-52 in the Aurora Christian regional final on Friday night in Aurora. The Cogs finish their season 21-7, their most under head coach Corey Jenkins, and co-champions of the Big Northern Conference West Division.

3:06 p.m., One Week Later

One Week Later in Sight and Sound

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Kishwaukee Community Hospital employees and DeKalb-area residents such as Karen Richardson, left, of Sycamore, came to the hospital to observe a five-minute silence to honor the memory of those slain last Thursday on the Northern Illinois University campus. "This hospital did such an amazing job, I wanted to be here," Richardson said. "The only thing that is going to get us through this is each other."

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Around 75 people came to the lobby of Kishwaukee Community Hospital to observe five minutes of silence in honor of those killed on Feb. 14. Similar observances took place around the city of DeKalb and on the university campus.

Red and Black All Over

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG Northern Illinois University senior Kevin Gorman, 23, crafts a memorial ribbon out of a roll of black ribbon and a roll of red ribbon with the NIU logo on Wednesday afternoon at Village Commons Bookstore. Employees at the store — about 80 students work part time there — have created more than 2,000 ribbons since Monday and plan to make as many as they can sell to support a scholarship fund established in honor of the students slain Feb. 14. The ribbons will cost $1.

Ribbons

Story and Photograph by Eric Sumberg

Ribbons are everywhere around DeKalb. On jackets and T-shirts, streetlamps and signposts, the colors black, red and white - some with images of huskies or paw prints, others held together with jewels or pins - have been making a strong showing in the past week.

All in support of the five students who lost their lives - Gayle Dubowski, Catalina Garcia, Julianna Gehant, Ryanne Mace and Dan Parmenter - and the 16 injured when gunman Steven Kazmierczak opened fire

Feb. 14 in a classroom in Cole Hall before turning a gun on himself.

Perhaps your ribbon was made by Michelle Jurinak, 20, a Northern Illinois University student from Fox Lake, at the Village Commons Bookstore. Employees at the shop, located about 300 yards from Cole Hall on Lucinda Avenue, have been working feverishly to produce the portable memorials.

“We stop to ring people up and then start packing them again,” Jurinak said while tying together a strip of black ribbon and a strip of red ribbon decorated with Huskie paws at the bookstore Wednesday afternoon. “For a while, as soon as we were making them, we were giving them away like hotcakes.”

It was not the intention of the store to sell the ribbons, but after customers came to the second-floor shop asking for large numbers of them, store manager Lee Blankenship decided they needed to charge a nominal amount. The $1 price for the ribbons will go toward the February 14 Student Scholarship Fund, which is being administered by the university.

“I made the decision that I would not make a profit nor appear to make a profit from the tragedy,” Blankenship said.

Village Commons Bookstore, which opened in 1970, was busy Wednesday afternoon, though many of the customers did not appear to be of college age.

“We've had different people,” Blankenship said. “A lot of townspeople or parents. People want to buy shirts to associate with the school.”

Though he wasn't on campus at the time of the shooting, Blankenship came to his store as soon as he heard of the tragedy. In the minutes after the attack, a female who had been injured in the shooting had walked in and was cared for by staff members before being taken to an area hospital. When he arrived, he gathered those who remained and together they made the decision to close down the store until Monday.

“I could see the employees were very upset,” he said.

Since re-opening Monday, the store has been working hard to keep up with demand for ribbons and merchandise. As of Tuesday, 1,444 ribbons had been sold with hundreds more made Wednesday. The main issues that employees are facing are finding enough black ribbon and coping as they work.

“This is very positive,” Courtney Carrie, 20, said of the act of being together making ribbons with a group of seven other student employees. “All of our managers and bosses have been great. It makes everything better knowing everyone is going through the same thing.”

Red Moon over DeKalb

Chronicle photo ERIC SUMBERG A full moon rises on Wednesday night over the fields of DeKalb on the evening of the lunar eclipse.