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The benefits of serving one's community are many, said Hinsdale Hospital Foundation Junior Board President Maddie Molis, and some of them are delicious. Molis and others on the 150-member board are looking forward to the 68th ice cream social event from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28. People of all ages from throughout the area are invited to Burlington Park in downtown Hinsdale for ice cream, a cake walk, games, an art project and a chance to support the work of the junior...
Long before she took her first engineering class at Hinsdale Central High School, Grace Deane knew a thing or two about using science to make life easier. Tasked with keeping her family's upstairs bathroom stocked with tissue, a much younger Deane used a basket and bungee cord to fashion a makeshift dumbwaiter to do the job. "I would dump all the toilet paper in there and then walk upstairs and pull the cord," she said. Now a senior at Hinsdale Central with several...
Each summer the Bank of America Student Leaders program chooses 300 high school juniors and seniors from across the country to gain leadership experience and develop skills while working with a nonprofit organization close to home. This summer, Sahan Sahgal of Hinsdale was among those 300 and one of five Chicago-area teens to embark on the eight-week endeavor. "I'm committed to helping out and giving back to my community," said Sahgal, who was introduced to the program by a...
Hinsdale's Alison Kozlow is a busy working mom of two preschoolers. Activism was not on her to-do list. But when seven people were gunned down and dozens more injured while watching the Highland Park Fourth of July parade earlier this month, she became a woman on a mission. Kozlow joined the March Fourth movement to galvanize public support and lobby Congress for stiffer gun control measures. "What we're trying to do with the March Fourth movement is ban assault weapons federa...
Creatures large and small have always found a welcome place in the home of Julie Boruff. Over the years she has raised dogs, nurtured an ant farm, offered shelter to a guinea pig and even welcomed a millipede named Frank. And that's just inside the house. Outside, Boruff has created a friendly space for monarch butterflies. The creation of an outdoor monarch habitat was part of the plan from the day the Boruffs broke ground on their Hinsdale home more than 10 years ago,...
The sedate suburbs couldn't compare with the daily unpredictability that U.S. Army Reservists and inseparable buddies Bob Allen and Brad Drake had faced on a 10-month deployment to Afghanistan. Despite their exhausting, unrelenting assignment helping run the Bagram Theater Internment Facility as military police in 2003-04, the two Hinsdale South graduates had grown to love the grind. From going on middle-of-the-night helicopter "ring routes" to collect enemy detainees to a harrowing evacuation of prisoners when the jail...
Julie Jordan Laux said her younger sister, Jodi Allen, was good at just about everything she did. Even after her death from pancreatic cancer, Laux said her sister is still making her mark. "She's still winning," Laux said. While battling cancer, Jodi wrote a prayer for the board of directors of Xavier University, Cincinnati, on which she served. While in hospice care, a music therapist turned those words into a song, which was submitted to a contest and won. The message of th...
Nathan Obryon said his outreach work with those trying to start afresh after prison or life on the streets has revealed yearnings we all share. "At the end of the day, we all have the same need for relationships, the same need for people in our lives who care," said the Golfview Hills resident. "We desire to be loved and be known." Through his church, Trinity Presbyterian in Hinsdale, Obryon volunteers quarterly at The Bridge, a Chicago ministry helping ex-offenders, former ga...
As an expert in artifact conservation, Anna Weiss-Pfau of Hinsdale is entrusted with some of the world's oldest, rarest and most valuable objects. "My husband thinks it's funny the museums don't want you to touch the art, but they call me and want me to come take a scalpel to it," said Weiss-Pfau, owner and principal conservator of Elmhurst-based Third Coast Conservation, formerly Liparini Restoration Studio in Evanston. Weiss-Pfau holds a master's degree in artifact...
Soon after returning to Hinsdale with his family from a six-year overseas work assignment, Bob Hooks went to pick up some groceries. "Paper or plastic?" the cashier inquired. "I'll pay cash," Hooks replied. After a bit of back and forth, he finally caught on to the meaning of the question. "Those (options) weren't here six years before," said Hooks with a smile, recalling the episode nearly 30 years later. Today, Hooks is six years into enjoying retirement with wife Kathi,...
After spending months with a classroom full of 3-year-olds, summer is a particularly quiet time for Kathy Behrens, teaching assistant at Hinsdale Covenant Preschool. Behrens was a preschooler herself when her family first moved to the village. And while her life has included stints in Texas, Minnesota and London, Hinsdale has always been home, Behrens said. It's where she and husband Chris, a Darien native, raised their three children, and where Behrens found her unexpected...
For recent Hinsdale Central graduates and Stage Door Fine Arts veterans Sam Romberger and Hannah Turek, exhaustive research was not required for their upcoming roles - as high school students seeking true friendship in "Bring It On!" "This is the show we're ending our high school careers with, and we're about to go off to college into a whole new world of people," Romberger said of the parallels to their own reality. That's not to say preparation wasn't required for the...
Denys Kang of Hinsdale said she was shocked and humbled to learn that her volunteer work at Oak School was being recognized with an Illinois State Board of Education Those Who Excel award. "I was in complete disbelief. I stood in my kitchen wiping away tears of gratitude," said Kang, a member of the Oak School Parent Teacher Organization. The annual awards recognize non-teachers who work within their local schools. District 181 had winners in all five categories. Kang said she...
Hinsdale Central senior Maurice Tobiano's transition to high school was complicated by transition to a new home in a new community. "I only knew like a couple people from swimming," she said. "I went in blind. It was a little scary at first." Tobiano soon discovered that Red Devil Nation was a welcoming place comprised of broader ethnic representation than she had previously experienced. "I just remember being very impressed by the diversity," she related. "I was one of, I...
It takes a number of skills and talents to conduct an orchestra. The most important quality, according to Hinsdale Central High School junior Alex Olguin, is focus. There's no place for distraction when leading dozens of musicians in a performance. "The conductor is the anchor of the orchestra," said Olguin, who began directing the Hinsdale Central orchestra ensembles as a sophomore, under the tutelage of orchestra director Serge Penksik. A cello player, Olguin said he now...
Keen to acclimatize to her new Golfview Hills surroundings after moving from Chicago, Eleanor Nadbielny signed up for a local garden tour. "It seemed like almost all the ladies on the tour were from the Garden (Study) Club, and they didn't know who I was," related Nadbielny, who had unwittingly made herself a club recruitment target. "I've been a member ever since," she said. That was 10 years ago, and for most of that time Nadbielny has held an officer's post in the...
May flowers aren't the only things adding a splash of color to the Hinsdale landscape in the coming weeks. The Community House's annual Walk the Walk event will become a color walk when it returns for its 15th year on Sunday, May 15. "Walkers will be showered with different colors of powder," said Karin Rohn, a member of The Community House board and the Walk the Walk committee. Four color stations will be located along the 1-mile route, offering participants ample...
Tomorrow, April 22, is Earth Day, the annual celebration of our planet. At Hinsdale Central, sophomore Ritvi Khurana is helping light the way toward a healthier globe as vice-president of the school's Ecology Club. She is among the cultivators of this week's Earth Week activities dress days, and was clad in all black when interviewed on Tuesday for the Lights Out! theme. "(Monday) was wear blue and green. We're promoting a clothing drive every day. We're promoting riding your...
Annie Koziel describes her character in Hinsdale Central High School's spring musical as melodramatic, narcissistic, insecure and oddly endearing. "She's so ridiculous, but also relatable," Koziel said of Rona Lisa Peretti, a lead character in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," opening April 22 on the Hinsdale Central stage (turn to Page 22 for details). The show centers on a fictional spelling bee at the equally fictional Putnam Valley Middle School. First produced...
Marna Slawson was driving into her job as manager of The Courtyard a little over two years ago when she got a call. "We're going to have to shut it down," said voice on the other end, as the curtain of the pandemic closed operations at the Hinsdale furniture resale shop. "Me and volunteers went ahead and looked at what our options were," she recounted. The shop, after all, was an important source of financial support for Wellness House's programs for cancer patients. "They...
What started as a part-time job at the Hinsdale Public Library became a career for Ellen Smith - a career that will end with her retirement on March 31, exactly 25 years after the day she first reported to work at 20 E. Maple St. Smith was a single mother between jobs in 1997 when a friend, Hinsdale resident and former children's librarian Barbara Delongis, suggested she take a position in the library's technical services department. Now known as collection services, Smith's...
Sue Boutin was ready to enter a more philanthropic phase of her life after her retirement three years ago. She wanted a role that would help serve the needs of others and give her a sense of purpose. Boutin found Assistance League Chicagoland West, and this publication is proud to have assisted, albeit unwittingly. "I started looking around and actually saw an article in The Hinsdalean on ALCW," remarked the 25-year Hinsdale resident. "I went, 'OK, that's local. I'll go to tha...
Extracurricular activities can help students make new friends, explore their creativity or hone their athletic skills. They also can save lives. Hinsdale resident Emma Gerhard is a junior at Benet Academy in Lisle and co-president of the Young Hearts For Life Junior Board. Founded by Dr. Joseph Marek in 2006, YH4L performs cardiac screenings on thousands of high school students each year. In its 16-year history, YH4L has screened more than a quarter million teenagers and...
Loren Williams joined The Community House as director of social impact late last year, but her work toward the organization's mission began more than a decade before. As a volunteer with the Community Consolidated District 180 Saturday reading program and later as a part-time clinician at The Community House, Williams has shared the organization's goal to provide social services throughout Hinsdale and the surrounding communities. When the search for a director of social...
Paul Jepsen answered a lot of calls during his decades with the Oak Park Police Department. Now the retired sergeant is responding to a different calling that connects him with prospects instead of suspects. Jepsen serves as team chaplain for the Chicago Dogs, a four-year-old independent professional baseball franchise in Rosemont. "I'm a layperson, I'm not an ordained minister," he's quick to point out. That didn't stop Dogs' manager Butch Hobson last year from approaching...
