Alumni Notes
Alumni notes are listed chronologically by submission date.
Aaron Stash '00 ADV, who currently works in the marketing department at United Airlines, was a featured actor in the Norm Foster play, " The Affections of May," at the Attic Playhouse in Highwood, Ill., this fall.
Morris R. Beschloss '52 JOURN was the recipient of dual honors by California State Senator John Benoit and Assemblyman Brian Nestande. Beschloss was awarded for his outstanding dedication and service at the September 2009 luncheon of Rancho Mirage Republican Women (Indian Wells Country Club). Beschloss was the featured speaker.
Ted Gournelos '08 PhD COMM, assistant professor of communication at Maryville University, has published a new book, titled "Popular Culture and the Future of Politics: Cultural Studies and the Tao of South Park," from Lexington Books. In it, Gournelos argues that progressives should conceive the connections between media, policy, and culture beyond the limits of "politics" and "news." With sustained analyses of groundbreaking contemporary examples of what has become known as “convergence culture,” Gournelos brings together a wide range of media without sacrificing depth, according to the publisher. His examples, such as South Park, The Simpsons, The Onion, The Daily Show, Chappelle’s Show, and The Boondocks, are chosen for their political scope and social impact and demonstrate the ways in which what we know as “politics” is rapidly changing.
Judy Hsu '93 JOURN, an anchor with WLS-Ch. 7 in Chicago, delivered her fourth baby -- while riding in the front seat of a car on the Eisenhower Expressway on October 13, 2009. Hsu and her husband were on their way to Northwestern Memorial Hospital when Alexander James made his debut, weighing in at 8 pounds, 13 ounces, as reported by WLS-Ch. 7.
Video not loading? Click here to watch.
Leslie Bardo '90 ADV has been named Senior Vice President for External Affairs with the Chicago Urban League. She has nearly 20 years public relations, consumer marketing, program development, sponsorship development, strategic communications, community relations, art direction, and event management. Bardo is also a published writer, most recently, "Family Affair: What it Means to be African American Today" (Agate/Bolden). Bardo resides in Chicago.
Melanie Magara '81 JOURN, assistant vice president for public affairs at Northern Illinois University, has won the Public Relations Society of American Award for Best Crisis Communications for her quick response to the shooting that took place at NIU's campus in February 2008. She now travels across state talking to educational groups about how her office handled that tragedy.
Douglas Isbell '88 MS JOURN is the new manager of communications and media relations for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA. This U.S. Department of Energy research laboratory conducts a wide range of unclassified civilian research in renewable energy, physics, nuclear science, Earth science, energy efficiency, astrophysics, and life sciences. The lab is also aiming to expand its direct communication with the public through effective use of social media.
Beryl Greenberg ‘82 ADV was named the the Vice President of Tesar- Reynes Advertising and Promotional Marketing firm in 2008. Greenberg currently serves as a member of the James Webb Young Board. She is married with three children and lives in Oak Park, Ill.
Tim Love '72 MS ADV was recently appointed CEO of Omnicom APIMA (Asia Pacific India Middle East and Africa) in July. In the new position, he will be based in Singapore and New York City, with the bulk of his time in Singapore.
Roman Paluta '79/81 MS ADV has joined Bailey Lauerman as vice president, chief marketing officer. Paluta was most recently chief marketing office, senior partner for Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis. He helped drive much of that agency's successful new business growth throughout the last decade.
Jeffrey Katz '78 JOURN was recently named National Public Radio's Deputy Managing Editor for Digital News. Since 2005, Katz has taken a leading role in coordinating and developing NPR's news presence at www.npr.org. Katz sets the Web site's daily and long-term news assignments and priorities, serves as an advocate for online coverage with the network's news desks and programs, and helps oversee coverage of breaking news events. Katz joined NPR as an editor in 1999, first on the network's National Desk, then at Morning Edition. Before then, Katz spent two decades as a newspaper and magazine reporter at The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal, The Milwaukee Journal, Governing Magazine and the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report.
Eugene Windchy '52 JOURN has published his second book, "The End of Darwinism; And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold" (May 2009; Xlibris Corporation), along with several articles. His first book, "Tonkin Gulf (January 1971; DoubleDay) was reviewed by The New York Times as "superb investigative reporting." While a student at Illinois, Windchy was Campus Editor of The Daily Illini.
Jessica Popper '00 ADV, who currently serves as Supervisor/Primetime in Integrated Marketing and Promotion for ABC Television Network, was on-site for the August 2009 taping of Extreme Makeover Home Edition in Champaign-Urbana. Popper stopped by to visit with faculty and shared her insider's knowledge of the hosts and tricks for the popular show. The episode will air in April 2009.
Pamela Strobel '74 JOURN is being honored by the Illinois Arts Alliance in October 2009 with an awards ceremony in Chicago. Strobel will be presented with the Arts Advocate Award for her work.
Jillian Baez '09 PhD COMM successfully defended her dissertation project, "atinas Talk Back: The Latina Body, Citizenship, and Popular Culture." 
Baez has been a Mellon, Ford, and SSRC Fellow and currently heads to a prestigious postdoc at the University of Michigan.
Steve Raquel '92/'93 MS ADV was featured August 19 in an online CNN video on Science and Technology News. Raquel, vice president of marketing for FanFuego.com, joined Evan Brown, an intellectual property attorney, and Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief of the technology blog, Mashable.com, to weigh in on the Southeastern Conference's policy banning social media from sporting events. Watch the entire CNN video.
Paul Ingrassia '72 JOURN has just finished his new book, "Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster," about the sad descent of General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. It will be published by Random House in January 2010.
Aubrie Morrison Williams '01 JOURN and her husband, Kristopher Williams '00 LAS welcomed their second child, Kathryn Adele Williams, on January 18, 2009. She joins Annalise, 3, at home in Champaign.
Cheryl Berman '74 JOURN has founded a new boutique advertising agency called Unbundled in Wilmette on the shores of Lake Michigan, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. "In the more than 30 years that she was a driving force in Leo Burnett's creative department and even after she ascended to the top managerial ranks, including Burnett chairman, Berman championed much of what great advertising is all about -- emotions, strong storytelling and catchy music that bonds consumers with the advertising and its message." These aspects of advertising were seen in many commercials for Burnett clients such as McDonald's, Hallmark Cards and the Walt Disney Co. Read entire Sun-Times Article.
Bob Lachky '75/'77 MS ADV, former Anheuser-Busch Chief Creative Officer, was featured in the AAF-Ad Club Saint Louis' Creative Speakers Luncheon at Saint Louis University's Busch Student Center on August 12. He will be honored by the club with the AAF Silver Medal Award in recognition for his contribution to the St. Louis Advertising Community. Hailed as one of the best-liked and most-respected marketing executives, not only in the beverage industry, but in all consumer product marketing, Lachky helped create some of the most memorable and iconic campaigns of the past two decades, including the Budweiser frogs, "Wassup?!" and the top-awarded radio campaign in history, "Real Men of Genius."
Andy Mueller '93 MEDIA STUDIES and fellow Illini Chris Eichenseer '96 BFA were featured in the new exhibition, "Public Works," at Chicago's Andrew Rafacz Gallery, July 31 through August 29. After graduating from Illinois, Mueller founded OhioGirl, a graphic design, film and photo studio. His client list grew to include such big names like RCA, Capitol Records and Burton Snowboards. He has since branched out, creating designs for Lakai Limited footwear from his new locale, Los Angeles. Also, he now has a t-shirt line known as Quiet Life and manages to retain time for freelance design projects, still under the name OhioGirl. His work is renowned these days, having been featured in countless design annuals and magazines. His designs have even appeared on MTV on numerous occasions. Read entire article in the217.com.
Michael Gordon Brown '70 JOURN recently started as the ALDAR Dean of Business at Abu Dhabi Women’s College, the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He was previously Fellow of the University and Head of the Real Estate Management and Development Group at Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands.
Kevin Cullen '77 JOURN, originally from Danville, currently serves as communications director for the 24-county Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, and editor of The Catholic Moment, the diocese' weekly newspaper. Before taking the job in December 2006, Cullen spent 30 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor at The Commercial-News (Danville, Ill.), The Journal and Courier (Lafayette, Ind.), and The Cincinnati Enquirer. He worked as Urbana city reporter and copy editor for The Daily Illini. He and his wife, Laurie, have two daughters, Ruth and Elizabeth, both students at Purdue University.
John A. Penning III '98 JOURN married Mary Loos, Oct. 25, in Portland, Ore. The groom's Illini relatives include father John A. Penning Jr. '70 BUS, mother Linda Hollinger '71 LAS, sisters Michelle Ochs '07 AHS and Jill Penning Darrah '02 JOURN and brother-in-law Kevin Darrah '01 LAS.
Victor Pickard '09 PhD COMM will join the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication in the Steinhardt School at New York University.
Pamela Szott '02 MEDIA and Michael Sill were married on July 17, 2009, at Meridian Banquets in Rolling Meadows, Ill. The couple honeymooned at Disney World. They reside in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Heidi W. Isenhart '93 AGCOMM was listed in the 2009 edition of Florida Trend magazine's Florida Legal Elite list published in July. Compiled via a state-wide poll of practicing attorneys in Florida, it lists the most highly regarded attorneys amongst their peers. A panel of previous Legal Elite winners, representing a variety of practice areas in cities across the state, reviewed the selection process and the list of finalists.
Charlie Meyerson '77/'78 MS JOURN is leaving the Chicago Tribune to become WGN-AM 720's news director, a move that will take him from the fourth floor of Tribune Tower to the ground floor and back to radio, where he made his debut as a Chicago newsman 30 years ago this month. Meyerson, winner of dozens of radio journalism awards, including a 1989 national UPI award for investigative reporting, has helped lead chicagotribune.com to a number of honors, including a Chicago Headline Club Lisagor Award for best news Web site in 2008. Meyerson, a 2008 inductee to the Illini Media Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois, joined the news team at WXRT-FM 93.1 in July 1979, leaving in 1989 to serve as WNUA-FM 95.5's news and public affairs director until 1998. "I joined chicagotribune.com almost 11 years ago to help create some of the excitement, urgency and fun of radio news. It's a thrill now to have the chance to bring what I've learned on the Internet back to radio," said Meyerson. Read full article from The Chicago Tribune.
Dave Eggers '02 JOURN delivers new book on Katrina survivor, movie on growing up, and screenplay on adored children's book. "Zeitoun" -- a new work of nonfiction -- distills the sprawling chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina into a single family’s story. The narrative follows a Syrian-American contractor who navigates the postapocalyptic streets of New Orleans in a second-hand canoe, then mysteriously disappears for several weeks after armed officers take him aboard their boat. The book is one of a number of new offerings from Eggers. His current works include the screenplay for the indie romantic comedy “Away We Go,” in theaters now, and the coming screenplay and novel based on the children’s picture book “Where the Wild Things Are.” Read the Wall Street Journal review. | More on Powells.com.
Kirstin Skurka '09 JOURN started in July at WHBF TV in Rock Island, Ill., as assignments editor. She took part in the Department of Journalism's study abroad program, "Revealing Romania," in June 2009.
Susanna Pak '09 JOURN was featured in the Illinois News Broadcasters Association's July e-newsletter for her summer internship with KHON2 in Hawaii. Asked what her most interesting assignment has been so far, Pak said, "I have to say the best assignment was our coverage of 20 Hawaiian students who were quarantined in South Korea because several students were suspected of having H1N1. We had very little information, so I called different government agencies in Korea, speaking in Korean. After two hours, I was able to get a representative of the CDC to confirm that five students tested positive for H1N1. We had that information 15 minutes before our 6 o'clock newscast. It ran as our top story, and we were the only station to report there were five confirmed cases. The station manager and the news director personally thanked me for my work. I had a byline on our web article, and I was featured in a promo about this story."
Cameron Kline '96/'98 MS JOURN was just named Director of Corporate Communications for Philadelphia Gas Works.
Larry Doyle '80 LAS/'83 MS JOURN turned his 7th grade dream into a reality with the opening of the movie based on his 2006 book, "I Love You, Beth Cooper." The former writer for Spy magazine and Emmy-winning writer for the "The Simpsons," Doyle also wrote the screenplay for the movie and admits that the material is semi-autobiographical. "This was based on a dream. I was giving my graduation speech and I was proclaiming my love for someone."
Dave Wischnowsky '98 JOURN has started writing a weekly Wisch List newspaper column for his hometown area paper, the Kankakee Daily Journal. A Chicago-centric column, the Wisch List runs on Saturdays with the intent to "bring Chicago closer to home." Read the Wisch List online.
Frank Sinton '84 ADV will serve as executive producer on the Travel Channel's new television show, "The Streets of America: The Search for America's Worst Driver." Based on an international format that has sold to more than a dozen territories, the show puts bad drivers through a series of challenges to find the worst of the bunch. The original "Britain's Worst Driver" was a hit for U.K.'s Five Channel and spawned several more "Britain's Worst ..." series. Local editions of the show have also been sold to Canada, Australia, Belgium, Holland and Sweden. "Streets of America" will take place in some of "America's most iconic driving cities," and is set to air during the first quarter of 2010.
Kareem Dale '95 ADV/'99 JD/MBA delivered the graduation address at his alma mater, where he was the valedictorian in 1991. Dale currently serves as Special Assistant to the U.S. President for Disability Policy.
Don Heimburger '69 JOURN has published a new 380-page hardbound book, "Trains to Victory" (Heimburger House: 2009), telling the dramatic story of World War II, when U.S. railroads, using fewer cars and locomotives than in WWI, carried more tonnage and more passengers than ever before. Divided into 13 chapters, plus a 32-page four-color section, an introduction, bibliography and a complete index, the 8 1/2 x 11" volume will appeal to railfans, historians, military historians, and anyone who wants to learn more about WWII.
Jim Hattendorf '66 JOURN has joined MBI Media, Covina, Ca, as Vice President of Operations. MBI Media is an award-winning strategic communications firm with over 30 years of broadcast media, corporate, and public relations.
Biloine Young '61 RADIO-TELEVISION published "Cahokia, the Great Native American Metropolis" through University of Illinois Press. The story of Cahokia, a vast urban center built by indigenous North Americans on the site of modern East St. Louis, the book tells the lives, personalities, and conflicts of the men and women who excavated and studied it.
K. Stephen Anderson '55 JOURN retired in June as editor of the Illinois State Bar Association's Bar News. He has been on the staff of the ISBA since 1988 after a long career as a suburban newspaper executive in the Chicago area. Anderson is past president of the Northern Illinois Newspaper Association and the Chicago Headline Club. He serves on the board of the Illinois Press Foundation.
Kathy Petitte Jamison '08 PhD COMM was hired as Assistant Professor of Communications at the University of Illinois at Springfield in 2005. She teaches a core graduate course in Research Methods and a graduate course in Film and Culture: A Global Perspective; many of the journalism writing courses, such as Feature Writing and Media Writing and Advanced Media Writing; as well as courses centered on media criticism, including Media Criticism, Advertising, Consumer Culture. In addition to her teaching and committee load, she continues her research and last year presented at the International Sociological Association conference in South Africa and lecture in Harbin, China, as the 2008 Faculty Exchange Scholar.
Melba Velez '09 PhD COMM was hired as tenure-track Assistant Professor at Grand Valley State in Grand Rapids, Mich.
Himaka Bhattachrya '08 PhD COMM will begin on faculty at the University of Syracuse following a year at Stony Brook University in New York.
Your comments, news items, and Alumni Notes are welcome. Please e-mail us at: media@illinoisalumni.org