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Tag: Between the Bylines

June 22, 2012

Weekly Wrap-up: Saying thank you to the men and women of our armed forces (and other things I get to do in the summertime)

It is an incredible privilege to tell the stories of the men and women of our armed forces, to shake their hands and tell them sincerely, “Thank you for your service.”

I learned this from my grandma. Lynn “G’ma” Wilson, the former executive director of my nonprofit Hope for the First Nations, makes it a point when she meets a Vietnam veteran on the reservation to shake his hand and tell him, “Miigwech (thank you),” and, “Welcome home.”

I’ve written a number of articles just this year about some of those brave men and women in the Chicago area for The Courier-News. You can read them all here. And you can read the article I was privileged to write yesterday, New home a place to ‘learn and grow’, about Army Spc. Nick Mapson. Like his wife, Jackie Mapson said, ““I can’t imagine what he’s been through. He honestly deserves everything he has been given.”

I also wrote this cover story this week: ECC sustains green efforts with passion for native plants. Because somehow, when schools let out in the summer, I become the garden reporter (read all those articles here).

And I wrote all these shorter stories:

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May 21, 2012

One man’s summer vacation of a lifetime (Sun-Times Media)

Like John Piper said when introducing the story of Ian and Larissa Murphy on the Desiring God blog,  “I tremble with the glad responsibility of introducing you” to Joseph Onesimus. It’s not often I share a story in the newspaper in which Christ is so central, but He is so central to Onesimus’ story, there was no other way to tell it. I hope his story finds you in whatever suffering, whatever sacrifices you are making, and I hope it moves and encourages you as it did me.

ELGIN — Joseph Onesimus has paid a steep price to bring a clean water source to his home village in Mbooni, Kenya.

It has cost Onesimus money, for sure, to fly back and forth between the African country and his current home in Plato Center.

It also has cost him time, taking months off from his job as an adjunct instructor of business at Elgin Community College to oversee the work in Kenya. And it has cost him his marriage: He now is going through a divorce, he said, because his wife didn’t have the same vision and because he was out of the country three months at a time.

But by the end of the summer, he said, 5,000 villagers in Mbooni will have access to clean water.

And that means no one will have to pay the same price his sister Esther Mueni Mativo did in 2004: her life.

“It’s a sacrifice for me, but you know what the funny thing is? I’ve never lacked,” Onesimus said.

“We’re here a short time, and we have to leave a legacy. If that doesn’t bring people closer to God and solve their human problems, I think that’s missing the point. How much money do you really need?”

The community college instructor, who also imports and sells art and tea from Africa, will fly to Kenya Tuesday, May 29, and arrive in the country late Thursday night, an expensive, 18-hour trip he usually makes every other year, he said.

Onesimus was born in Kenya, the oldest of five children of parents who were missionaries in Somalia. It was tough growing us as a “missionary kid,” always moving from one place to another, leaving behind friends and changing schools, but it was “eye-opening,” he said.

And, he said, it meant growing up “in a family that always gives.”

The water-producing borehole was the vision of his father, the Rev. Onesimus Mativo, the instructor said.

For the rest of the story, read One man’s summer vacation of a lifetime (Sun-Times Media).

For more information about how you can help, read How you can help Living Waters Borehole in Kenya (Between the Bylines).

Photo credit: Submitted photo.

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May 14, 2012

No matter the year or circumstances, prom brings night to remember (Sun-Times Media)

Since we’re smack dab in the middle of the Fox Valley’s 2012 Prom season, our Storytellers thought it would be fun to talk to three ladies from three different generations about their experiences on the night of the Big Dance.

Not surprising, their stories are vastly different — except for one thing. No matter what the year, Prom has a way of etching memories in our minds that stick around forever.

Here’s the vignette I shared as part of this Storyteller in The (Elgin) Courier-News, Naperville Sun and The (Aurora) Beacon News. It’s the story of Brittany Blue, a South Elgin High School senior who attended her prom this past weekend.

It’s hard to find a prom dress that fits without alterations when you’re six feet tall. But Brittany Blue did it this year. It’s a teal one-shouldered, sequined, floor-length. And it only cost $240.

That’s about on par with the national average, according to prom magazines and USA TODAY.

It’s also about what the South Elgin senior paid last year for her dress to the junior prom, an old Hollywood-themed dinner and dance held at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield in Schaumburg.

More than 850 students attended that event, said South Elgin Principal Melanie Meidel. South Elgin expected to sell about 700 tickets to this year’s prom that was held on Saturday. Because of last year’s unexpectedly high turnout, the hotel had to add 15 dinner tables to an outside patio, nicknamed “the circus tent” by prom-goers.

Meidel estimates the average couple will spend close to $500 for the night. That’s still conservative compared to the average price nationwide: $1,078, according to a survey of Seventeen Prom and TeenPROM magazines. Most of that will go toward the prom dress ($231) and rented tux ($127, plus another $100 for a tie, cummerbund and shoes).

“When you look back at your high school photos,” said Blue, “you want to look good.”

Blue did without a limousine last year, but planned on sharing one Saturday with her date, a sophomore who is one of her best friends, and 10 to 12 other friends. They’d started a Facebook group to organize their plans, and may go to Six Flags in Gurnee the day after this year’s carnival-themed event.

She’s also getting her nails and hair done — maybe something like Marilyn Monroe’s platinum waves. That probably will cost another $100.

All in, Brittany estimated, her parents will spend about $700 to $800 to send her and her twin brother to the dance.

And that’s worth it, she said.

“I’m in a lot of activities, and everything all blurs together, but there’s only one senior prom. We’ll all be in different places next year. It’s kind of crazy and scary and weird. This is one of the last things we’ll do together.”

For the rest of the story, read Storyteller: No matter the year or circumstances, prom brings night to remember (Sun-Times Media).

For my blog post featuring more feedback about prom from current high school seniors, read Behind the scenes of South Elgin’s ‘Last Prom’ (Between the Bylines).

For my accompanying column about my own senior prom experience, read From the Storyteller (Sun-Times Media).

Photo credit: Jeff Cagle for Sun-Times Media.

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April 29, 2012

REPOST: Your local bride’s perspective on the royal wedding (Between the Bylines)

Happy first anniversary, William and Kate! This time last year, I was 23 days out from my own wedding and a little bleary-eyed after waking up at 5 a.m. to watch the royal wedding. That didn’t keep me from blogging about it for The Courier-News’ Between the Bylines blog, though. You can read all our Between the Bylines posts on the royal wedding here.

Here’s “Your local bride’s perspective on the royal wedding.”

I’m no Anglophile. To wit: I inaccurately referred to the Queen as “the Queen Mum” at about 4:30 this morning on Twitter. (To be fair, it also was 4:30 THIS MORNING.)

But I am a bride-to-be (in 23 days… but, like I said yesterday, who’s counting?). And a journalist. That made watching the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and feigning interest in it in the wee hours of the morning kind of mandatory.

I’m not going to lie, though. Sometime between making fun of the fact the Queen’s (again, not the Queen Mum) brooch had a NAME and it was THE QUEEN MARY’S TRUE LOVER’S BROOCH… and that Princess Bea looked like some evil creature from Fantasia… and the time Kate arrived at Westminster Abbey at 5 a.m., I was interested.

TEARDROP EARRINGS! The bride was wearing sparkly teardrop earrings! Her hair, down! And LACE! And the Queen was in yellow!!! My wedding, so vomit-inducingly close, is so on-trend right now!

Then there was Prince Harry, sneaking a peek at his brother’s bride coming down the aisle over his shoulder and whispering to William, “She looks incredible.” And the groom, joking to Kate’s father at the altar, “We were supposed to have a small family gathering.” And Kate, mouthing to her husband as they left the church she was “so happy.” Those are the little, unscripted details that are far better than anything any bride could come up with in, say, EIGHT MONTHS OF TORTUOUS, MIND-NUMBING PLANNING.

After a week in which I took a straight pin to a vein and spurted gory, horror movie amounts of blood all over my white wedding dress during a fitting… a week of news of tornadoes and budget cuts and murders and drug busts… a little frivolous, entirely joyful news wasn’t so bad.

The Bishop of London said during his sermon at the royal wedding (which I loved and was based on one of my favorite passages of Scripture):

Many are full of fear for the future of the prospects of our world but the message of the celebrations in this country and far beyond its shores is the right one — this is a joyful day! It is good that people in every continent are able to share in these celebrations because this is, as every wedding day should be, a day of hope.

If the royal wedding brings you a little joy, a little hope, who am I to begrudge you that? It certainly brings me a little hope to think THE END IS IN SIGHT. Not to mention, THE EARRINGS ARE GOING TO WORK.

Just remember, when we get to my wedding, what the Bishop of London said next:

“In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding.”

Photo credit: Green Wedding Shoes. Squiggles divider by IROCKSOWHAT.

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March 27, 2012

Are U46, D300 teachers cheating on student test scores? (Between the Bylines)

In this week’s blog post on The Courier-News’s Between the Bylines blog, I used The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s database of school district’s standardized test-score shifts over the past four years to see if teachers are cheating on students scores in the school districts I cover, Elgin School District U46 and Carpentersville-area Community Unit School District 300. The AJC’s investigation into Atlanta public schools last year uncovered the biggest cheating scandal in American history.

I’m sorry to report I won’t be winning the Pulitzer this year (not for this, anyway), but in case you’re curious…

For the rest of the story, read Are U46, D300 teachers cheating on student test scores? (Between the Bylines).

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