This one is a blast from the past, but it's still one of the articles I've written that I'm most proud of. I accomplished it as A Chicago Sun-Times intern while attending graduate school in 2001.
Chicago Sun-Times, Jun 24, 2001 by JAMES FULLER
SPRINGFIELD When you're ailing, you hope the doctor will cure you, not scramble your internal organs or prescribe radiation treatment for a cancer you do not have.
And if the doctor does do something horrific, you can sue. The doctor might have to pay for the mistake, and it will become a matter of public record, albeit filed away in a courthouse somewhere.
Yet physicians who hurt patients are rarely if ever punished-or even mildly reprimanded-by the state agency that licenses and monitors doctors, the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation.
The doctors' transgressions, though they may have led to a court judgment or an out-of-court settlement, are not posted on the state Web site, and the agency will refuse to reveal such information even if you call to ask.
"It utterly confounds logic," said Gail Siegel, executive director of the Coalition for Consumer Rights, a watchdog group that identified cases of malpractice for the Sun-Times. "Not only do we have incompetent doctors practicing incompetence on people, but we have a culture of incompetence at the regulatory agency that's supposed to be protecting patients."
When to sanction
An analysis of state, federal and court records showed that 85 doctors in Illinois have been hit with malpractice awards of more than $2 million since 1991. Of those, only seven have been disciplined by the state.
In five of the seven discipline cases, the punishments meted out by the nine-member Medical Disciplinary Board were so mild-a reprimand or probation-that the doctors continued to work without interruption.
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Of the 85 cases, six doctors had multiple settlements or judgments against them. Yet none received as much as a slap on the wrist.
"If that was you or I driving, our licenses would be revoked," said Rep. Mary Flowers (D-Chicago), chairwoman of the legislative House Health Care Availability and Access Committee.
In defense of its policies, DPR points out that juries in malpractice cases operate under far less stringent standards than state regulators. It's easier to win a six-figure malpractice award than to identify clear violations of state law.
"Somebody was in contact with a doctor, something didn't go right, and someone has a . . . substantial problem as a result," said DPR Director Leonard Sherman. "But that doesn't, by any means, (make) a violation of the Medical Practice Act."
The law outlines 43 instances under which the state can recommend sanctions against a doctor's medical license, including the charge of "gross negligence." Ultimately, the semi-autonomous Medical Disciplinary Board makes the call. Since 1991, the board has revoked 68 doctor licenses, suspended 255 others and issued 258 reprimands.
Physicians have been sanctioned for owing back taxes and child support, failing to repay student loans, misdiagnosing ailments and demonstrating incompetence.
But consider the cases in which the state stood silent:
A 55-year-old Joliet woman undergoing surgery in 1992 for a bowel obstruction had her bowel punctured by mistake-an error her physician neglected to tell her about. For 10 days, Arlene Johnson's stool seeped out of her surgical incision at a rate that approached 8 liters per day. Yet Robert Chambers dismissed the secretions as a normal part of the healing process. Subsequent surgeries by other doctors could not correct Chambers' mistake, and Johnson died.
"In my eye, in my family's eye, it was murder," said Johnson's daughter, Cheryl Ryan. "Dr. Chambers just left her to lay there and die. You don't let somebody's bowels ooze into their bodies and think that they are going to heal themselves."
Chambers, now practicing in North Dakota, declined to discuss the case, other than to say: "The state was very aware of what was going on. The state medical board looked at it and did not feel that there was any reason to have concern." He was not disciplined. Johnson's family was awarded $5.2 million in 1995.
Suffering pain in her pelvis, 52-year-old Ruta Ivey of Zion underwent radiation and chemotherapy after Alfonso Mellijor incorrectly diagnosed the return of cervical cancer. Mellijor made the diagnosis without taking a biopsy.
As a result of the treatment, a severe ulcer developed on Ivey's buttocks, and her pelvic pain continued.
Finally, a Wisconsin surgeon, while preparing to amputate her left leg and part of her pelvis, discovered the true source of her pain: two sponges left inside her from an earlier hysterectomy or ulcer surgery. Neither of the earlier surgeries involved Mellijor.
A jury awarded Ivey $6 million in 1995 for Mellijor's botched cancer diagnosis, but the state DPR took no action against him.
Ivey's attorney, James H. Canel, acknowledges that Mellijor had no way of knowing about the sponges. "On the flip side, you say, `Wait a minute, you took this patient and you assumed she had a recurrence of cancer and exposed her to all sorts of bad things, radiation and chemotherapy.' Clearly a jury thought that that was negligent."
While declining to comment on specific cases, the Illinois State Medical Society-the voice of doctors in Springfield-said it favors sanctions against incompetent doctors. At the same time, the group says, it's not uncommon for doctors in high-risk fields to be sued multiple times because they take on cases where the outcomes are far from certain.
"Filing a suit is easy, but proving that there's true malpractice is another story," said Dr. Ronald L. Reucker, the group's president. "Malpractice isn't the same as bad medicine."
Secret findings
Although Illinois law requires insurance companies to report all malpractice judgments to DPR, a 1997 report by Auditor General William Holland showed that most of these cases never were investigated.
When the DPR does investigate a malpractice case, it keeps its findings secret unless the investigation leads to a formal complaint or disciplinary action. These cases are posted on DPR's Web site, www.dpr.state.il.us.
For more details, a consumer may have to check court records in 102 county courthouses, assuming the doctor has practiced only in Illinois. Or pay $200 for access to the National Practitioners Database, which contains information about the malpractice suits filed in a particular state. Or rely on the Jury Verdict Reporter, a publication of Law Bulletin Publishing that provides summaries of some malpractice cases for $645 a year.
Flowers, the state lawmaker from Chicago, pushed legislation last spring requiring DPR to compile physician profiles so people could compare doctors.
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The profile would list criminal charges, disciplinary actions, hospital privilege revocations and medical malpractice awards.
Flowers' bill was never voted on by the full House, in large part because of opposition from the Illinois State Medical Society and, initially, DPR. The agency now is neutral on the issue.
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Thursday
Religious and gay: A two-part series
Part 2: Proud to be ordained -- and gay
Published: 9/25/2007 12:03 AM
By James Fuller
Jay Johnson once lived a secret existence he didn't even have the words to describe.
On the outside in 1980, he was a Wheaton College freshman who represented all the ideals of the Christian community he grew up in, right down to thoughts of wearing a collar himself someday.
On the inside, confusing thoughts and impulses haunted him. He knew he wasn't like his peers, but couldn't figure out why.
Johnson had a loving family. He attended the local schools, dated the local girls. His father was a member of the Wheaton College faculty.
And yet, that freshman year he began living two lives. He even kept two separate journals. One was about his everyday life. He locked the other in a drawer in his dorm room.
"I posed a lot of questions to God in that journal," Johnson recalled. "What's wrong with me? Why is this happening?"
He felt increasingly isolated. Then, sophomore year, he was called into a counselor's office.
Johnson was not getting along with his roommate, so he wasn't surprised when the counselor told him the living arrangement wasn't working.
Then, out of a desk drawer, the counselor pulled out photocopied pages of Johnson's locked-away journal.
"It was akin to finding yourself naked on stage in front of a whole auditorium of people," Johnson said. "I thought my life was over."
Johnson had been outed by his roommate. The journal recorded inquiries about why his relationships with women were unfulfilling.
"I thought it was a phase, and sooner or later the light switch will flip on," Johnson said. "I thought I was just sort of late. No one talked about it."
The counselor sent Johnson to therapy.
"I thought maybe there is a problem that can be identified and fixed," Johnson said.
He dedicated himself to a cure by taking his secret journal and setting it on fire. He would burn his thoughts and, he hoped, his problems with them.
It was too late. His secrets were no longer hidden. Summer plans to backpack through Europe ended when two students said they no longer wanted to travel with him.
"I was not defensive, but I was certainly hurt," Johnson said. "I just completely acquiesced as if it was a natural thing for people to not want to be around me. I was terribly sad. I was isolated and alone."
Six months of therapy did not flip the switch as Johnson had hoped.
"I still walked out of there with the idea that this is a problem that needs to be fixed," Johnson said. "The good news was I was not alone. The bad news was I've got a serious problem that needs to be fixed."
Johnson knew the college had a policy against being a practicing homosexual, but no one ever checked in with him to see the results of his therapy. He decided to pursue answers to his questions on his own.
That's when Johnson was invited to go to church by a resident assistant in his dorm. It wasn't his regular Sunday church outing. This was Mass at St. Barnabas in Glen Ellyn, an Episcopal church.
Johnson found several other Wheaton College students attending the church and was hooked by the active participation and enthusiasm. He had found a new social outlet in these friends.
Johnson didn't come out and say he was gay in those conversations. That didn't happen until spring of his senior year. By then he decided it was time to tell someone about his feelings. He chose a friend he'd known since junior high. Turns out, both were gay.
Still, the conflict between his sexuality and religion was strong. Abandoning his faith was not an option. He was even majoring in theological and biblical studies, where he found a talent for ministry work. At the same time, Johnson believed abandoning his sexuality would be akin to cutting off a leg in an effort to be a better dancer.
"There was no sense that I could get rid of one in favor of the other," he said.
So even though his Wheaton College education gave him all the academic and critical thinking tools and spirituality to examine the texts and traditions of his Christian faith, the key to solving his struggle did not come in his college years. But those tools would come in handy later.
Six months after graduation, Johnson decided to go back to therapy. This time it would be with a therapist of his choosing. By now, he'd decided he wasn't looking for a cure, but a way to put all the facets of his life in harmony.
He believed he'd also found his calling. He entered the process of ordination in the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago. The process begins at the parish level. That meant interviewing with his local rector and being honest about his sexual thoughts.
It would be a big risk. Coming out at his church meant possibly alienating himself from his spiritual home.
The reaction was better than he'd hoped.
"It was supportive and encouraging," Johnson said. "But the rector did think it was important that I promise to be celibate in order to move forward in the ordination process."
A lifetime of celibacy did not seem unreasonable at that moment.
"I did not recognize that this was a false choice that was put in front of me," Johnson said. "I believe there are some people who are simply called to be celibate, but I think that's a very small number."
Johnson's path to ordination began. In the fall of 1985, he was off to a theological seminary in Wisconsin.
There he met another gay man. Through their conversations, Johnson realized he needed to go to confession.
"I needed to confess my sin of not appreciating God's gift of sexuality," Johnson said. "I realized not accepting and receiving this gift of sexuality was actually sinful."
Johnson had always considered his sexuality a thorn in his side, a birth defect, but now realized he could be wrong. It was a revelation that allowed him to feel happy in his own skin for the first time.
A visitor to Johnson's room at that point would have seen evidence of that revelation in a bumper sticker that he cherished. It read, "What causes heterosexuality?" It was a bizarre twist on the question he asked himself even before he knew he was gay.
"Sexuality is far too complex to reduce to any one cause," Johnson said.
The next step was making sure his beliefs were compatible with his calling by coming out to his bishop. Johnson wanted there to be no questions about him going through the ordination process.
The bishop told him to worry about his sexuality only insofar as necessary to integrate that sexuality into the rest of his life. Concealing his urges from the world would only wreck havoc in Johnson's life, he said.
The bishop behind that advice was Frank Griswold, who went on to become the presiding bishop and chief pastor for the Episcopalian Church. Griswold is now retired.
Johnson was ordained in June 1988 and served as curate at St. Simon's Episcopal Church in Arlington Heights. He made the decision to not make himself known as a gay man while in the parish. He was still afraid.
"While I was not engaging in outright deception, it did start to feel like leading a double life, which eventually takes a heavy toll," Johnson said. "The folks at St. Simon's were great, and I loved working with them, but I made the decision after my three years there never to closet myself again."
And he never did.
In 1991, Johnson began a doctoral program in Berkeley, Calif., and fell in love with the Bay area. He is currently the acting executive director of The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. Since achieving that position, he's begun to focus his research on integrating spirituality and sexuality, not only as a gay man, but as a Christian.
"Christian churches don't know what to say about sex except who to do it with and when," Johnson said. "By focusing on a very few biblical passages that supposedly condemn gay and lesbian relationships, Christians are missing the forest for the trees."
Instead, Johnson focuses on biblical sources and historical theological traditions where he said he's found the language of erotic desire and homosexuality to be comparable to the language used to talk about human desires for God, as well as God's desires for us.
This language doesn't relate to literal sexual attraction to God, but rather a deep desire for communion. Such language gets to the root of man not being meant to live alone, Johnson said.
He's taken steps to help ensure other Wheaton College students and alumni aren't alone as he was in his struggles on campus. Johnson is active in the college's gay alumni association. And, he recently returned to the college to take part in a panel discussion where he told current students it's OK to be gay and Christian.
"I'm very happily a gay man, and I'm not grudgingly a Christian," Johnson added. "This is not a thorn in my flesh. In fact, if I were presented with a pill that would 'cure' my sexuality I would pretty likely not take it. This is who I am."
Religious and gay: A two-part series
Part 1: Leaving the gay lifestyle behind
Published: 9/25/2007 12:03 AM
By James Fuller
The last time Angela Yuan saw her son was when he threw her out of his house. It was Christopher's retribution. His parents cast him out of the family after he announced he was gay. Angela prayed every day for God to save her son.
Now they reunited inside prison walls. They were still separated by the bulletproof glass, but joined in prayer for the first time. She didn't know the dark path her son had walked. He didn't know her prayers were about to be answered.
Thou shalt not covet
Christopher Yuan's first sexual thoughts came at age 9, when he found a trove of adult magazines in a friend's bathroom cabinet.
"It was that rush of doing something wrong," he said.
With the rush came the realization he felt attracted to both genders. When puberty hit, Yuan bought his own adult magazines.
The attraction to men felt instinctual. At 16, he met an older man at a gay social club and had his first sexual experience.
When his mother found out about it, she forced Christopher into counseling.
"We thought I was fixed after that," Yuan recalled. "Basically, we just didn't talk about it."
He tried dating girls, but was still attracted to men. After finishing Hinsdale Central High School, he sought a rugged image to squelch his thoughts and joined the Marine reserves.
It wasn't a cure. The weekend training sessions in Gary, Ind., took him away from the watchful eyes of his parents. After training, he'd rush to Chicago's gay clubs.
"I decided, 'I've just got these urges, and I'm just going to satisfy them,' " Yuan said.
He decided to become a dentist like his father. He enrolled at Louisville University in 1992, where gay bars were just blocks from campus.
"For me, that was just like freedom." Yuan said. "I felt like I belonged. I was in school. I was smart. I was in shape. I was a Marine."
With all that going for him, it was easy to tell his parents he was gay.
Angela recalls it well. It was "worse than receiving news of his death."
Her life was crumbling. Her son rejected her. Her marriage was failing. At night she'd tape her eyelids to control the swelling caused by her tears. She decided to visit Christopher.
Then she'd kill herself.
Before boarding a train to Louisville, Angela visited a chaplain for advice. She left town with just a purse and a pamphlet. It told her God loves all sinners. He hates only sin itself. For the first time she believed she could love her son even if he were gay.
Christopher was shocked by the transformation.
"All I remembered is them kicking me out of the family," he said. "I really thought she'd just flipped her lid."
No gods before me
Yuan was deeply rooted in the gay community by then. Much of his social life was at gay clubs. That's where he discovered drugs, but didn't have much cash now that he was cut off from his family. So he started selling to friends to support his habit.
He soon found he could sell up to 100 hits of Ecstasy in just one weekend at the clubs. He quickly added his classmates and even one of his professors to his clientele.
Being the man everyone came to for a good time was addictive. The money was fast and easy. Yuan used the business skills he'd learned at his dad's dental office. He began flying to other states to buy and sell more drugs.
Yuan's schoolwork did not improve with his travels. The university decided to expel him for his absences and poor grades. Yuan asked his parents to convince the university to let him stay on.
"By then I was just praying to God to do whatever was necessary -- that could even mean death -- to make him do right," Angela said.
Yuan's parents supported the expulsion. He was furious. It was another reason to disown them.
He moved to Atlanta, and gained a foothold in the gay club scene by dealing drugs. He sold Special K, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, mushrooms, steroids, Ecstasy and a pure form of methamphetamine known as "ice."
It was a Hollywood lifestyle: all the drugs he wanted, a new sports car, an expensive apartment with a pool, his own personal bodyguards.
"I had become God," Yuan said. "I would walk into a club and, literally, a sea of people would come up to me."
Honor thy mother
Angela didn't know about the drugs. She just knew her son wasn't living right.
She'd play Christian songs on Christopher's answering machine. She'd mail cards every other week. Every space on all four sides was filled with her words. They all ended with "Love you forever, Mom."
On holidays, she'd send Yuan a plane ticket home and wait for him at the airport. He'd never show up. He'd never call.
So his parents went to him.
"All I wanted to do was have sex and do drugs and sell drugs, and they didn't fit into that schedule," Yuan said.
He kicked them out after a couple days, but his dad left him a Bible. When the door closed, Yuan threw it away.
He was now at the peak of his drug-dealing and using. He'd burn 10 days in a row smoking ice, not eating or sleeping until he'd pass out from exhaustion. He dropped from 180 to 130 pounds.
Yuan was also at the height of his promiscuity, sleeping with multiple partners in a day, often not knowing their names.
To make his life seem legitimate, he became a promoter, coordinating parties at clubs. The club would supply the bartenders. He'd supply the drugs and DJs.
"I thought I was invincible," Yuan said.
At home, Angela swooned in spiritual devotion. She fasted 39 days in a row, living only on vegetable juice. Her prayers were desperate requests for her son's salvation.
In 1998, she believes God answered her prayer.
Prodigal son
Yuan was sorting a large drug shipment on his kitchen table when a dozen U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officers, Atlanta police and two German shepherds arrived.
Drug orders were coming over the fax and phone even as agents stormed through. Yuan ran his drug deals like a business. He kept every receipt and had a ledger detailing all transactions.
Jackpot.
The agents took everything. All told, the DEA busted Yuan with various drugs having an estimated street value of nearly $11 million today.
He began calling friends to bail him out. None of the 20 people he tried took his call.
There was one number left.
Angela Yuan was walking in the door from her Bible study group when her phone rang.
She flew to Atlanta the next day. She saw her son behind a thick pane of glass.
She asked Christopher if he would allow her to pray for him. She pressed her hand to the glass. Yuan met her palm with his own. It was the first time he ever prayed.
Two days later, Yuan paced the facility, beginning to realize his mistakes.
On top of a garbage pile was a pocket-sized Gideon's New Testament. He took the book back to his cell.
"It began to change me," he said. "If I knew that, I wouldn't have picked it up."
There was a lot to change.
"I thought I'd probably stop selling, but not doing drugs or going to clubs," he said. "I didn't even consider giving up the gay lifestyle."
Yuan cut a deal to testify against other drug dealers the government had built a case against because of Yuan's files. He got six years.
"I was just crushed," Yuan said. "I was going to be ancient when I got out."
He was 28.
Yet, a new low was coming.
Hope and a future
Yuan found himself one morning shackled in front of a prison nurse. He saw tears in her eyes as she gave him a piece of paper. It read:
"HIV +"
It was a death sentence on top of his prison stay.
Back in his cell, Yuan gazed at the empty bunk above his own. Etched into the frame was a message: "If you're bored, read Jeremiah 29:11."
The verse speaks of God's plan of peace and happiness for everyone.
"God really used that verse to speak to me," Yuan said. "Regardless of who I was, or what I'd done, he had a plan for me."
Yuan used that hope to conquer the sins he believed led him to ruin: drugs, greed and homosexuality.
He started with support groups, but couldn't accept the ideology of forever being an addict even once he was clean.
"One of God's most important messages is you can be completely changed," Yuan said. "You should never identify yourself by your struggles. My rebellion does not constitute who I am. I don't consider myself an addict anymore."
Yuan made God his addiction. The cravings vanished.
Next was letting go of the drug dealer lifestyle. His prison sentence was enough to convince him to quit.
Sex was last. He hoped to balance homosexuality with the Bible, but only found an ultimatum.
Yuan was not instantly cured of his attraction to men. But he decided his sexual thoughts would no longer define him. He didn't believe thinking about men made him a homosexual any more than occasional murderous thoughts made someone a murderer. Yuan decided to follow God by committing to celibacy.
"People say, 'How can you live without having sex?' " Yuan said. "Well, it's possible. It's not even an aspect of who I am."
The cleansing was complete. It was time to start his second chance at life.
Paroled to God
Federal agents used Yuan's drug files to nail a key figure they'd long sought. Yuan was the star witness.
Testifying risked his safety. In prison, only a child molester is lower than a snitch.
Yuan's new faith became his courage on the witness stand.
In exchange for his testimony, his sentence was cut to three years. He'd already served nearly two. He had to figure out what to do with his second chance. The Bible and ministering to others were all he cared about.
He decided to enroll in the only Bible college he'd ever heard of, Chicago's Moody Bible Institute.
Yuan needed letters of recommendation from people who knew him for at least one year as a practicing Christian. That meant slim pickings. He eventually secured letters from a prison chaplain, a guard and a fellow inmate.
Yuan left the rest to God.
He didn't wait long. Yuan was accepted to Moody after his release in July 2001.
He graduated in May 2005 and was accepted at Wheaton College's graduate school to learn biblical exegesis --a systematic study of the Bible.
He now teaches at Moody and shares his life story with whatever church congregation will hear it, including South Barrington's influential Willow Creek Community Church. He travels around the world in good health thanks to checkups every three months.
Yuan's life is not free from temptations, but he believes his faith continues to deliver him from evil. He rejects the sexual labels of homo, hetero and bi-sexuality. He says God has even opened his heart to female relationships and marriage now.
"Not everything that feels good is right," Yuan said. "Attraction is not a choice, but acting on those attractions is. Acting on same-sex attraction is not encoded into DNA like ethnicity or skin color. Black people can't wake up one day and say, 'I'm no longer black.'
"Gay people can wake up and say, 'I'm no longer gay.'
"I'm living proof of that."
Sidebar: Therapy optional for adult sex offenders
Published: 9/17/2007 6:01 AM
By James Fuller
One of the ironies of Illinois' correctional system results in some sex offenders never receiving a minute of corrective therapy to ward off repeat offenses.
State guidelines call for every sex offender who commits a crime as a minor to receive mandatory therapy while incarcerated. But there's no such rule for adult sex offenders. Therapy for them is optional in prison.
Many of the adult inmates who refuse treatment may be the most likely to commit another crime, said Alyssa Williams-Schafer, state corrections department sex offender services coordinator.
"A lot of these offenders are in denial," Williams-Schafer said. "Some of them don't want to have to deal with their offense."
Many offenders are so adamant in their belief that they've done nothing wrong that they forego the favorable chance at early parole therapy gives them and serve their full sentences, said Dr. Mark Brenzinger, a clinical psychologist in Schaumburg who's treated and evaluated sex offenders.
Illinois' rules only mandate sex offenders on parole to receive psychological treatment. But offenders who've served their full sentence can get out of prison without ever addressing or recognizing their crimes in therapy.
Brenzinger said even the sex offenders who do enter therapy are tough cases.
"Many will tell you whatever it takes just to get back into the community," he said. "Talk therapy just doesn't work for everybody," he added. "And there's a high failure rate because this is a tough population to treat."
By James Fuller
One of the ironies of Illinois' correctional system results in some sex offenders never receiving a minute of corrective therapy to ward off repeat offenses.
State guidelines call for every sex offender who commits a crime as a minor to receive mandatory therapy while incarcerated. But there's no such rule for adult sex offenders. Therapy for them is optional in prison.
Many of the adult inmates who refuse treatment may be the most likely to commit another crime, said Alyssa Williams-Schafer, state corrections department sex offender services coordinator.
"A lot of these offenders are in denial," Williams-Schafer said. "Some of them don't want to have to deal with their offense."
Many offenders are so adamant in their belief that they've done nothing wrong that they forego the favorable chance at early parole therapy gives them and serve their full sentences, said Dr. Mark Brenzinger, a clinical psychologist in Schaumburg who's treated and evaluated sex offenders.
Illinois' rules only mandate sex offenders on parole to receive psychological treatment. But offenders who've served their full sentence can get out of prison without ever addressing or recognizing their crimes in therapy.
Brenzinger said even the sex offenders who do enter therapy are tough cases.
"Many will tell you whatever it takes just to get back into the community," he said. "Talk therapy just doesn't work for everybody," he added. "And there's a high failure rate because this is a tough population to treat."
Investigative: Sex offenders at large?
Published: 9/17/2007 6:01 AM
Some manage to elude police struggling to keep track of them
By James Fuller
The whereabouts of more than 8 percent of the sex offenders in Illinois -- and a good portion of those in the suburbs -- is uncertain, a Daily Herald analysis shows.
An examination of the state's sex offender database showed 1,667 registered sex offenders living in 99 suburbs in the newspaper's circulation area.
In a one-day snapshot, authorities listed 143 of those offenders "non-compliant," meaning they're missing or failed to hit their deadline to check in with police.
The number of non-compliant offenders ranges from only 10, or 3.3 percent, in DuPage County to 865, or 20 percent, in Cook County.
In Lake County, it's 15.2 percent; in Kane County, 6.9 percent; and in McHenry County, 6.2 percent.
Joseph Birkett, DuPage County state's attorney, said those figures are worrisome.
"The bottom line is they are within a group of very dangerous people who are very likely to re-offend," he said. "We need to know who they are and where they are."
All adult sex offenders in Illinois are listed on the Internet with a photo and address. But sex offenders tend to be highly transient because of the stigma attached to their crimes.
It's tough for many offenders to find housing. And because of the sheer number of offenders police are asked to track, some sex offenders vanish into the shadows.
Statewide, there are more than 22,000 registered sex offenders. Of the 1,794 who are non-compliant, roughly 20 percent are classified as sexual predators, sexually dangerous or sexually violent, or are convicted murderers of children.
No home, more roam
Tracking problems begin even before sex offenders are released from Illinois prisons.
The state bans them from living within 500 feet of schools and other places children gather, resulting in a backlog of inmates seeking legal housing. Thus, some sex offenders ready for parole and mandatory psychological therapy are kept in prison until their sentence expires.
"It would be better to have them out in the community, having them monitored, rather than stay with us and get out with absolutely nothing," said Alyssa Williams-Schafer, state corrections department sex offender services coordinator.
The inability to find legal housing may be one reason sex offenders vanish.
For example, when Iowa increased its 500-foot law to 2,000 feet, registration compliance fell from 90 percent to 50 percent.
Which way did he go?
Once sex offenders are released, more problems begin.
On the streets, the offender is either on electronic monitoring, released on parole without monitoring, or on his own after serving a full prison term.
The Illinois Department of Corrections and probation officers oversee about 5,200 sex offenders on the streets. Roughly 90 percent of them are tracked by a GPS device, which makes a big difference, Williams-Schafer said.
"Our sex offenders rarely disappear," she said.
GPS monitoring is gaining popularity in some states, such as California. It's not foolproof; many GPS devices rely on sex offenders to recharge the battery each night.
Birkett said he favors widespread and long-term use of GPS to track sex offenders. It hasn't happened in Illinois because the devices are expensive, and the bulky device tends to be a scarlet letter.
Still, Birkett said GPS will gain popularity if the state forces the offenders to pay for the devices. That's roughly $7 to $10 a day.
Beating the system
All the remaining sex offenders in Illinois are monitored by local police. The most dangerous offenders must register every three months and whenever they move or change jobs. Yet it's still at this level where most sex offenders go missing.
"I'd like to tell you that every person that's been convicted and needs to register has registered, but that's probably not true," said detective Sgt. Dan Cott of the Geneva Police Department.
The state sex offender Web site shows Geneva had 31 registered sex offenders, with eight non-compliant.
Cott said that's misleading because the Kane County jail is in Geneva and that may be an offender's last valid address. That said, Geneva police conduct regular spot checks, but there are ways to beat the system.
For example, some of the spot checks involve only calling a landlord to ask if a person is still a registered tenant at an address. There may be no face-to-face confirmation that the sex offender is actually there.
There are other gaps.
"Is it possible they can change their jobs and not notify us? Sure. That's kind of a loophole," Cott said.
Waukegan's sex offender numbers also stand out. The city has some of the highest totals of non-compliant sex offenders in the state. Out of Waukegan's 159 sex offenders, 40 are non-compliant. In comparison, Aurora has twice the population, but only seven of its 181 sex offenders are non-compliant.
"We're one of the largest cities in the county; we're the county seat, and we've got the jail," Waukegan Deputy Chief Mark McCormick said. "A lot of people get paroled here."
Despite the department's active sex offender registration unit, Waukegan sees many sex offenders fall off the map when they move and don't tell the police where they're going. By the time a sex offender misses his registration date, it may be long after he's gone.
"I think that's pretty common," McCormick said. "There's a label and stigma that's attached to the sex offense itself. They don't want that label to follow them. They think they can escape it. And we go out and obtain warrants on these people."
Birkett said a recurring problem in DuPage County is sex offenders getting their names legally changed, making them harder to track. His office is investigating how to close that loophole.
Short on tools
Some local police departments are also at a technological disadvantage to their peers in other states.
No local police department interviewed had a system that allows it to run searches to see where sex offenders may establish water, electrical or other utility service for a new residence.
But state police have the ability to use credit, employment and utility searches to track offenders. Still, it can take hours or years to find them, said Craig Burge, of the Illinois State Police.
"Imagine taking a segment of the population around 22,000 people and trying to monitor and track their every movement, every employment, every school they enroll at," Burge said. "It becomes overwhelming at times."
State police post the names and photos of missing sex offenders on the Internet specifically to cause concern among the general public.
"A lot of our tracking and monitoring is based on the general public," Burge said. "They know more about their communities than we'll ever know."
But a missing sex offender poses the greatest risk of attacking another child, said Dr. Mark Brenzinger, a clinical psychologist in Schaumburg who's treated and evaluated sex offenders.
Brenzinger favors a biometric identification system for sex offenders, such as retina scans, that police could use to pull up criminal history and registration status during traffic stops or arrests.
"We have a very reactive system," Brenzinger said. "We need to be proactive. There's a lot of work that needs to be done on the beginning end of the criminal justice system. We can't reward sex offenders when they break the law by giving them extended registration requirements or probation or a slap on the wrist.
"They need to feel the full weight of the government."
Some manage to elude police struggling to keep track of them
By James Fuller
The whereabouts of more than 8 percent of the sex offenders in Illinois -- and a good portion of those in the suburbs -- is uncertain, a Daily Herald analysis shows.
An examination of the state's sex offender database showed 1,667 registered sex offenders living in 99 suburbs in the newspaper's circulation area.
In a one-day snapshot, authorities listed 143 of those offenders "non-compliant," meaning they're missing or failed to hit their deadline to check in with police.
The number of non-compliant offenders ranges from only 10, or 3.3 percent, in DuPage County to 865, or 20 percent, in Cook County.
In Lake County, it's 15.2 percent; in Kane County, 6.9 percent; and in McHenry County, 6.2 percent.
Joseph Birkett, DuPage County state's attorney, said those figures are worrisome.
"The bottom line is they are within a group of very dangerous people who are very likely to re-offend," he said. "We need to know who they are and where they are."
All adult sex offenders in Illinois are listed on the Internet with a photo and address. But sex offenders tend to be highly transient because of the stigma attached to their crimes.
It's tough for many offenders to find housing. And because of the sheer number of offenders police are asked to track, some sex offenders vanish into the shadows.
Statewide, there are more than 22,000 registered sex offenders. Of the 1,794 who are non-compliant, roughly 20 percent are classified as sexual predators, sexually dangerous or sexually violent, or are convicted murderers of children.
No home, more roam
Tracking problems begin even before sex offenders are released from Illinois prisons.
The state bans them from living within 500 feet of schools and other places children gather, resulting in a backlog of inmates seeking legal housing. Thus, some sex offenders ready for parole and mandatory psychological therapy are kept in prison until their sentence expires.
"It would be better to have them out in the community, having them monitored, rather than stay with us and get out with absolutely nothing," said Alyssa Williams-Schafer, state corrections department sex offender services coordinator.
The inability to find legal housing may be one reason sex offenders vanish.
For example, when Iowa increased its 500-foot law to 2,000 feet, registration compliance fell from 90 percent to 50 percent.
Which way did he go?
Once sex offenders are released, more problems begin.
On the streets, the offender is either on electronic monitoring, released on parole without monitoring, or on his own after serving a full prison term.
The Illinois Department of Corrections and probation officers oversee about 5,200 sex offenders on the streets. Roughly 90 percent of them are tracked by a GPS device, which makes a big difference, Williams-Schafer said.
"Our sex offenders rarely disappear," she said.
GPS monitoring is gaining popularity in some states, such as California. It's not foolproof; many GPS devices rely on sex offenders to recharge the battery each night.
Birkett said he favors widespread and long-term use of GPS to track sex offenders. It hasn't happened in Illinois because the devices are expensive, and the bulky device tends to be a scarlet letter.
Still, Birkett said GPS will gain popularity if the state forces the offenders to pay for the devices. That's roughly $7 to $10 a day.
Beating the system
All the remaining sex offenders in Illinois are monitored by local police. The most dangerous offenders must register every three months and whenever they move or change jobs. Yet it's still at this level where most sex offenders go missing.
"I'd like to tell you that every person that's been convicted and needs to register has registered, but that's probably not true," said detective Sgt. Dan Cott of the Geneva Police Department.
The state sex offender Web site shows Geneva had 31 registered sex offenders, with eight non-compliant.
Cott said that's misleading because the Kane County jail is in Geneva and that may be an offender's last valid address. That said, Geneva police conduct regular spot checks, but there are ways to beat the system.
For example, some of the spot checks involve only calling a landlord to ask if a person is still a registered tenant at an address. There may be no face-to-face confirmation that the sex offender is actually there.
There are other gaps.
"Is it possible they can change their jobs and not notify us? Sure. That's kind of a loophole," Cott said.
Waukegan's sex offender numbers also stand out. The city has some of the highest totals of non-compliant sex offenders in the state. Out of Waukegan's 159 sex offenders, 40 are non-compliant. In comparison, Aurora has twice the population, but only seven of its 181 sex offenders are non-compliant.
"We're one of the largest cities in the county; we're the county seat, and we've got the jail," Waukegan Deputy Chief Mark McCormick said. "A lot of people get paroled here."
Despite the department's active sex offender registration unit, Waukegan sees many sex offenders fall off the map when they move and don't tell the police where they're going. By the time a sex offender misses his registration date, it may be long after he's gone.
"I think that's pretty common," McCormick said. "There's a label and stigma that's attached to the sex offense itself. They don't want that label to follow them. They think they can escape it. And we go out and obtain warrants on these people."
Birkett said a recurring problem in DuPage County is sex offenders getting their names legally changed, making them harder to track. His office is investigating how to close that loophole.
Short on tools
Some local police departments are also at a technological disadvantage to their peers in other states.
No local police department interviewed had a system that allows it to run searches to see where sex offenders may establish water, electrical or other utility service for a new residence.
But state police have the ability to use credit, employment and utility searches to track offenders. Still, it can take hours or years to find them, said Craig Burge, of the Illinois State Police.
"Imagine taking a segment of the population around 22,000 people and trying to monitor and track their every movement, every employment, every school they enroll at," Burge said. "It becomes overwhelming at times."
State police post the names and photos of missing sex offenders on the Internet specifically to cause concern among the general public.
"A lot of our tracking and monitoring is based on the general public," Burge said. "They know more about their communities than we'll ever know."
But a missing sex offender poses the greatest risk of attacking another child, said Dr. Mark Brenzinger, a clinical psychologist in Schaumburg who's treated and evaluated sex offenders.
Brenzinger favors a biometric identification system for sex offenders, such as retina scans, that police could use to pull up criminal history and registration status during traffic stops or arrests.
"We have a very reactive system," Brenzinger said. "We need to be proactive. There's a lot of work that needs to be done on the beginning end of the criminal justice system. We can't reward sex offenders when they break the law by giving them extended registration requirements or probation or a slap on the wrist.
"They need to feel the full weight of the government."
Descriptive: Making the band High school musicians took to the field - and the heat - before school began
September 03 2007
By James Fuller
Daily Herald Staff Writer
None of these teenagers need to be here. Yet something keeps them coming back to suffer with a smile.
All summer they've practiced their portions of songs like "Brickhouse" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" instead of lounging at the beach.
At Wheaton North High School, students fill four rows of blue chairs and gaze at music sheets and a dry erase board filled with notes.
Similar scenes are occurring simultaneously at high schools all over DuPage County in early August, when marching bands began preparations for the school year.
This is weeks before the start of school. There are no lights on. Temperatures outside are in the mid-90s. A handful of moms fill a freezer in back of the room with Popsicles to fight off the brain baking that is yet to come.
Outside, in the parking lot, are drum sets and what appears to be a gong, reminiscent of the old TV show. In a nearby hallway, dance music energizes the flag-wielding color guard performers.
For now, the focus is on the brass and wind instruments in Jon Noworyta's Wheaton North band room. It's 11:57 a.m. and teens in T-shirts, shorts and caps create the chaotic jazz of awakening instruments.
This is the second of two weeklong camps for the band. They know the routine.
With a simple, "OK!," from Noworyta, there is silence.
"Good morning."
Not good enough.
"Good morning, Mr. Noworyta!"
That's more like it.
"We will work you hard, but not until you drop," Noworyta tells them. The band members smile knowingly.
"Somewhere over the Rainbow" is first on the set list. The meandering tune is a test of lung power.
"You have to blow aaalll the way through the long notes," Noworyta instructs. "It's non-negotiable."
Noworyta is firm and commanding in his direction. He must be. A successful band camp is crucial. The two weeks of training is one-third of the marching band's total rehearsal time for the season.
That makes for intense sessions for students like Mark Weeden, who wields the tuba.
Weeden is in his third year with the band. He describes his extracurricular choice as "harder than wrestling."
That wouldn't be the common perception, at least from the outside.
The "American Pie" trilogy linked the words "band camp" to an endless combination of jokes and ridicule.
Those comedians probably never carried a tuba like Weeden, or marched in the sun for nearly eight hours a day while trying to memorize choreographed steps.
"It's fun," Weeden said.
And that's what keeps people like Anhad Jolly involved through all four years at the school. Jolly plays percussion after discovering a love for drums in the fifth grade.
"It's sweet," Jolly said of his choice of instrument. "It sounds cool."
Coming to marching band camp his first time was supposed to be a recreational part of summer.
"I was actually expecting it to be really, really easy," Jolly said of his first band camp experience four years ago. "Band class is (considered) kind of like a blow-off class."
Jolly soon found band camp would sooner blow him up than let him blow it off. Now much has changed.
The tail-busting begins when it's time to head out to the football field.
As the band hits the 50-yard line, the heat is already oppressive.
Each band member lugs out their own gallon-sized jug of water to replace what they're already sweating out.
"Caliente!" shrieks a member of the color guard. "Aye yi yi!" Comes back the reply.
It starts with stretching: quads, delts, triceps, hamstrings, abductors and wrists all get some blood circulating through them.
Then it's time for the 68 members to assume their places for the choreographed marching that comprises their performances.
The band members hold their hands high, simulating the instruments they'll eventually hold. A tapping, like a metronome, bangs out on a plastic container to mark the timing.
"Dut, dut, dut, dut," the band members chant in rhythm to the tapping.
The movements begin in sets of up to 16 counts. The marching involves exaggerated heel-to-toe steps of precise lengths. Many of the steps are performed with blind movement backward or diagonal. One person's screw up can throw off the whole formation, or cause comical, but disastrous, collisions.
The coordination is not unlike running a football or basketball play. Everyone has a role and a place as an individual. It takes everyone to succeed collectively for the band to succeed.
Jen Johnson is such a pro at this now that it almost looks like there's two of her on the field. In fact, there is.
Johnson is one of the two "things" in the band for today's practice, or at least that's what the tag on the front of her shirt says.
Everyone, including Noworyta, has someone dressed as close to identical as possible for the training session. It's called twin day, a team building exercise that unites two band members in a special camaraderie.
There are other exercises the band will undergo with the same goal of jelling into a second family, such as the Rookie Talent Show, where all the new members and coaches must perform something that shows what they bring to the team.
Today, the band is just concerned with surviving the sun and showing they have the acumen to memorize more than 20 sets of movements that make up their show. The first few runs of the day by the Wheaton North marching band shows a little rust.
"Be honest," Noworyta says at the end of one set. "This is the sixth day of camp."
At least a dozen band members hit the grass in recognition of their mistake and bang out six push-ups.
"This is simple review; that's all we're doing," Noworyta says in half encouragement, half come-on-already fashion. "We're not fixing things. When you start talking, you don't listen to me."
If Noworyta is the heavy hand, then Ryan McCann is the tickle that comes with it. McCann, a Wheaton College senior, is one of the coaches who supervises individual sections looking for mistakes and correcting them - with a smile and his "I'm with stoopid" T-shirt.
"The kids know that we mean business when we're out on the field, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun while doing it," McCann said.
Shirts are soaked with sweat, water jugs are drying up with an hour of field practice left. The mental burden never leaves them. Band members check the set books that hang from their necks showing them exactly where they should be vs. where they are.
There are nine sets still to memorize. But the band is now in a groove. Noworyta can end a set, call out "back four" and members race back to their exact starting positions from four sets ago.
"You guys are rockin' today," Noworyta tells them. "See how much faster we are today? You're learning."
The band memorizes six more sets in 40 minutes.
"There's 20 minutes, three sets," Noworyta tells them. "Can it be done?"
"Yes, Mr. Noworyta," echoes the reply.
But 10 minutes later things start to break down.
"Do you want to make it to the end?" Noworyta asks.
"Yes, Mr. Noworyta."
"If you don't want to make it to the end, that's fine," Noworyta tells them, not meaning it for a second. "Do you want to make it?"
The rest of the practice is performed without error.
"YES!" Noworyta tells them in reward. "Good job. Are you excited to be done?"
"Yes!"
"Good, put that excitement into your feet and reset. Time to do it in live time."
There's a tense confidence as the band resets for the big test of the day. One continuous set from first movement to the end, the whole show in one try.
"Dut. Dut. Dut. Dut."
What once was stilted flows like they've never moved any other way. The sense of accomplishment fills the air, but is soon replaced by water balloons. It's a surprise cooling off for the band and a symbol of their achievement, comparable to a Super Bowl Gatorade dunking for the coach.
The morning practice ends with the Popsicles stored away many hours ago.
Looking down the hallways lined with teenagers with plates of watermelon, Noworyta knows he's ended the day with a paint-by-numbers sketch of his season in place. All that's left is filling in the color in the right spots.
Sometimes that takes nurturing. Sometimes a crack of the whip.
"I do what I do to help the kids be successful," Noworyta says. "Regardless of the style, whatever it is, my expectations are high. I will not lower them for the kids. They know what is good enough for today won't be good enough tomorrow. A champion is a champion because that's all that they've got to give."
By that axiom, having fun is paramount. And the most fun of all is winning.
This is Natalie Edwards' last band camp. She's a graduating senior with four camps to her credit. Looking back, she can see a lot of the mistakes she made as a rookie marching band member in the new class.
But she also sees the process that brought her unforgettable memories and friends still at work. Soon the band will form a new family once again.
"I'm gonna miss it," she said. "I'll miss the people."
By James Fuller
Daily Herald Staff Writer
None of these teenagers need to be here. Yet something keeps them coming back to suffer with a smile.
All summer they've practiced their portions of songs like "Brickhouse" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" instead of lounging at the beach.
At Wheaton North High School, students fill four rows of blue chairs and gaze at music sheets and a dry erase board filled with notes.
Similar scenes are occurring simultaneously at high schools all over DuPage County in early August, when marching bands began preparations for the school year.
This is weeks before the start of school. There are no lights on. Temperatures outside are in the mid-90s. A handful of moms fill a freezer in back of the room with Popsicles to fight off the brain baking that is yet to come.
Outside, in the parking lot, are drum sets and what appears to be a gong, reminiscent of the old TV show. In a nearby hallway, dance music energizes the flag-wielding color guard performers.
For now, the focus is on the brass and wind instruments in Jon Noworyta's Wheaton North band room. It's 11:57 a.m. and teens in T-shirts, shorts and caps create the chaotic jazz of awakening instruments.
This is the second of two weeklong camps for the band. They know the routine.
With a simple, "OK!," from Noworyta, there is silence.
"Good morning."
Not good enough.
"Good morning, Mr. Noworyta!"
That's more like it.
"We will work you hard, but not until you drop," Noworyta tells them. The band members smile knowingly.
"Somewhere over the Rainbow" is first on the set list. The meandering tune is a test of lung power.
"You have to blow aaalll the way through the long notes," Noworyta instructs. "It's non-negotiable."
Noworyta is firm and commanding in his direction. He must be. A successful band camp is crucial. The two weeks of training is one-third of the marching band's total rehearsal time for the season.
That makes for intense sessions for students like Mark Weeden, who wields the tuba.
Weeden is in his third year with the band. He describes his extracurricular choice as "harder than wrestling."
That wouldn't be the common perception, at least from the outside.
The "American Pie" trilogy linked the words "band camp" to an endless combination of jokes and ridicule.
Those comedians probably never carried a tuba like Weeden, or marched in the sun for nearly eight hours a day while trying to memorize choreographed steps.
"It's fun," Weeden said.
And that's what keeps people like Anhad Jolly involved through all four years at the school. Jolly plays percussion after discovering a love for drums in the fifth grade.
"It's sweet," Jolly said of his choice of instrument. "It sounds cool."
Coming to marching band camp his first time was supposed to be a recreational part of summer.
"I was actually expecting it to be really, really easy," Jolly said of his first band camp experience four years ago. "Band class is (considered) kind of like a blow-off class."
Jolly soon found band camp would sooner blow him up than let him blow it off. Now much has changed.
The tail-busting begins when it's time to head out to the football field.
As the band hits the 50-yard line, the heat is already oppressive.
Each band member lugs out their own gallon-sized jug of water to replace what they're already sweating out.
"Caliente!" shrieks a member of the color guard. "Aye yi yi!" Comes back the reply.
It starts with stretching: quads, delts, triceps, hamstrings, abductors and wrists all get some blood circulating through them.
Then it's time for the 68 members to assume their places for the choreographed marching that comprises their performances.
The band members hold their hands high, simulating the instruments they'll eventually hold. A tapping, like a metronome, bangs out on a plastic container to mark the timing.
"Dut, dut, dut, dut," the band members chant in rhythm to the tapping.
The movements begin in sets of up to 16 counts. The marching involves exaggerated heel-to-toe steps of precise lengths. Many of the steps are performed with blind movement backward or diagonal. One person's screw up can throw off the whole formation, or cause comical, but disastrous, collisions.
The coordination is not unlike running a football or basketball play. Everyone has a role and a place as an individual. It takes everyone to succeed collectively for the band to succeed.
Jen Johnson is such a pro at this now that it almost looks like there's two of her on the field. In fact, there is.
Johnson is one of the two "things" in the band for today's practice, or at least that's what the tag on the front of her shirt says.
Everyone, including Noworyta, has someone dressed as close to identical as possible for the training session. It's called twin day, a team building exercise that unites two band members in a special camaraderie.
There are other exercises the band will undergo with the same goal of jelling into a second family, such as the Rookie Talent Show, where all the new members and coaches must perform something that shows what they bring to the team.
Today, the band is just concerned with surviving the sun and showing they have the acumen to memorize more than 20 sets of movements that make up their show. The first few runs of the day by the Wheaton North marching band shows a little rust.
"Be honest," Noworyta says at the end of one set. "This is the sixth day of camp."
At least a dozen band members hit the grass in recognition of their mistake and bang out six push-ups.
"This is simple review; that's all we're doing," Noworyta says in half encouragement, half come-on-already fashion. "We're not fixing things. When you start talking, you don't listen to me."
If Noworyta is the heavy hand, then Ryan McCann is the tickle that comes with it. McCann, a Wheaton College senior, is one of the coaches who supervises individual sections looking for mistakes and correcting them - with a smile and his "I'm with stoopid" T-shirt.
"The kids know that we mean business when we're out on the field, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun while doing it," McCann said.
Shirts are soaked with sweat, water jugs are drying up with an hour of field practice left. The mental burden never leaves them. Band members check the set books that hang from their necks showing them exactly where they should be vs. where they are.
There are nine sets still to memorize. But the band is now in a groove. Noworyta can end a set, call out "back four" and members race back to their exact starting positions from four sets ago.
"You guys are rockin' today," Noworyta tells them. "See how much faster we are today? You're learning."
The band memorizes six more sets in 40 minutes.
"There's 20 minutes, three sets," Noworyta tells them. "Can it be done?"
"Yes, Mr. Noworyta," echoes the reply.
But 10 minutes later things start to break down.
"Do you want to make it to the end?" Noworyta asks.
"Yes, Mr. Noworyta."
"If you don't want to make it to the end, that's fine," Noworyta tells them, not meaning it for a second. "Do you want to make it?"
The rest of the practice is performed without error.
"YES!" Noworyta tells them in reward. "Good job. Are you excited to be done?"
"Yes!"
"Good, put that excitement into your feet and reset. Time to do it in live time."
There's a tense confidence as the band resets for the big test of the day. One continuous set from first movement to the end, the whole show in one try.
"Dut. Dut. Dut. Dut."
What once was stilted flows like they've never moved any other way. The sense of accomplishment fills the air, but is soon replaced by water balloons. It's a surprise cooling off for the band and a symbol of their achievement, comparable to a Super Bowl Gatorade dunking for the coach.
The morning practice ends with the Popsicles stored away many hours ago.
Looking down the hallways lined with teenagers with plates of watermelon, Noworyta knows he's ended the day with a paint-by-numbers sketch of his season in place. All that's left is filling in the color in the right spots.
Sometimes that takes nurturing. Sometimes a crack of the whip.
"I do what I do to help the kids be successful," Noworyta says. "Regardless of the style, whatever it is, my expectations are high. I will not lower them for the kids. They know what is good enough for today won't be good enough tomorrow. A champion is a champion because that's all that they've got to give."
By that axiom, having fun is paramount. And the most fun of all is winning.
This is Natalie Edwards' last band camp. She's a graduating senior with four camps to her credit. Looking back, she can see a lot of the mistakes she made as a rookie marching band member in the new class.
But she also sees the process that brought her unforgettable memories and friends still at work. Soon the band will form a new family once again.
"I'm gonna miss it," she said. "I'll miss the people."
Alternative story form: 7 festivals, 7 hours Our fearless reporter hits 7 communities to find some fun
Sunday July 15 2007
By James Fuller
To start, I'll just put it out there - I'm not the biggest fan of suburban summer festivals. Maybe it's because I grew up in Chicago, and my idea of a summer festival is the Taste of Chicago, or the Chicago Blues Festival.
Still, I'm a suburbanite now. And at least once during the summer I venture out to the land of corn dogs and elephant ears. The question is always, which fest to go to.
Saturday posed a rare opportunity. Seven communities, seven different festivals, all on the same day. Driving directions in hand, I set out at 9 a.m. to set a personal fest-a-thon record.
Fest one: I had to pick a festival to get me started on the right track. Naturally, that meant Railroad Days.
I pulled into the parking lot at Reed-Keppler Park in West Chicago shortly after 9 a.m. Railroad Days was an immediate disappointment.
It was early, perhaps too early. Most rides were idle, and unattended. The ticket booths were empty. And the morning's stiff breeze carried no hint of funnel cake.
Referee whistles, however, called me to the unique Railroad Days offering of mud volleyball. Six courts, squared off by sandbags and filled with ankle-deep mud. It's good mud, like the kind in Jeep commercials. Ten minutes of watching some of the best belly flops I've ever seen brightened my attitude.
To those volleyball athletes, here's mud in your eye.
Fest two: From there, I figure that if I can't get a corn dog, then I'll get some culture. Time to hit the first art-themed fest of the day, Wheaton's Fine Art Fair.
In general, my appreciation for art lies with the bizarre, or something that, when I see it, I know it'll stay rattling in my head for a while.
George Bucher's sculptures ended my quest for the bizarre. How often do you find a bust of Benjamin Franklin made of twine next to a twine lady smoking a cigarette?
"I don't make stuff they teach in school," Bucher said.
Then, as Bucher began picking at a homemade 5-string banjo, I knew I'd also found someone that would stay rattling around in my head. This would not be topped. So on to the next fest.
Fest three: Sticking with the art theme, I head over to the Women's Club Art Fair at Naper Settlement. Again, I'm looking for the bizarre. And, again, I find it quickly in what looks like a 10-foot-tall dragon or dinosaur, complete with claws and spiked tail. It's made entirely of scrap metal.
Indeed, all the art created by Allen and Teri Miles has a prehistoric/industrial feel. There's a piranha made partially of what looks like saw blades. And there's a chopper with real chompers courtesy of a large animal skull being used as the fuel tank.
"Our stuff can stay outside in all seasons," Allen Miles explains. You'd be hard-pressed to find a spot for it inside. On to the next fest.
Fest four: Ah, the Fine Craft Exhibition at the Oakbrook Center mall. I'm not sure it qualifies as a festival, but what the heck. Compared to the Wheaton and Naper Settlement fests, this is somewhat boring. Most booths display things you can find other places in the mall. Except for maybe the Herb Johnson booth displaying a giant metal hummingbird with jewel eyes gazing over a cache of metal daisies. There are metal dragonflies, fish and moths to match. I'm not sure why they appeal to me other than their rarity/oddity. I've found a new appreciation for heavy metal.
Fest five: It's well into the afternoon now, and I can't believe I haven't even seen a ridiculously large pile of greasy French fries yet, much less eaten one. So it's on to day three of Itasca Fest. When I arrive, I'm stunned. An entire line of food booths with no lines at all. Pulled pork sandwich, deep-fried chips and lemonade, here I come. Once done, one attraction draws me in. There are free stilt-walking lessons. The key is to keep your balance on a much narrower base than you're used to, with no help from your arms because you must hold onto the stilts. I do OK, but maybe Ishould've gone to the learn-to-make-giant bubbles tent instead. With all the reader e-mails I get about being full of hot air, I'd have natural talent. But the day is growing short. On to the next fest.
Fest six: At Summerfest in Glendale Heights, I follow the crowd to the source of audible laughter. Ah, yes. Teams of children are wearing helmets with cups glued to the top. Adults fill the cups with water and the kids walk a line and empty the cup into a bucket without removing the helmet. The result is lots of water on the kids, not so much in the buckets. There's nothing quite like watching adults laugh and point at kids to put the world in perspective. After laughing at the adults who are laughing at the kids, I decide it's time to wrap the fest-a-thon up with a grand finale.
Fest seven: The last fest is Glen Ellyn's inaugural jazz fest. It's been in the works for three years. With that much planning, I'm expecting something special. As I arrive, Paulinho Garcia and John Moulder are playing a Bossa Nova appropriate for their Brazilian style. Jazz fans have packed Main Street for a full downtown block.
As I sit and listen I decide the fest has a decidedly Ravinia feel to it, except there's asphalt under us instead of grass and table cloths instead of picnic blankets. It has a soothing impact, perfect to end the day.
By James Fuller
To start, I'll just put it out there - I'm not the biggest fan of suburban summer festivals. Maybe it's because I grew up in Chicago, and my idea of a summer festival is the Taste of Chicago, or the Chicago Blues Festival.
Still, I'm a suburbanite now. And at least once during the summer I venture out to the land of corn dogs and elephant ears. The question is always, which fest to go to.
Saturday posed a rare opportunity. Seven communities, seven different festivals, all on the same day. Driving directions in hand, I set out at 9 a.m. to set a personal fest-a-thon record.
Fest one: I had to pick a festival to get me started on the right track. Naturally, that meant Railroad Days.
I pulled into the parking lot at Reed-Keppler Park in West Chicago shortly after 9 a.m. Railroad Days was an immediate disappointment.
It was early, perhaps too early. Most rides were idle, and unattended. The ticket booths were empty. And the morning's stiff breeze carried no hint of funnel cake.
Referee whistles, however, called me to the unique Railroad Days offering of mud volleyball. Six courts, squared off by sandbags and filled with ankle-deep mud. It's good mud, like the kind in Jeep commercials. Ten minutes of watching some of the best belly flops I've ever seen brightened my attitude.
To those volleyball athletes, here's mud in your eye.
Fest two: From there, I figure that if I can't get a corn dog, then I'll get some culture. Time to hit the first art-themed fest of the day, Wheaton's Fine Art Fair.
In general, my appreciation for art lies with the bizarre, or something that, when I see it, I know it'll stay rattling in my head for a while.
George Bucher's sculptures ended my quest for the bizarre. How often do you find a bust of Benjamin Franklin made of twine next to a twine lady smoking a cigarette?
"I don't make stuff they teach in school," Bucher said.
Then, as Bucher began picking at a homemade 5-string banjo, I knew I'd also found someone that would stay rattling around in my head. This would not be topped. So on to the next fest.
Fest three: Sticking with the art theme, I head over to the Women's Club Art Fair at Naper Settlement. Again, I'm looking for the bizarre. And, again, I find it quickly in what looks like a 10-foot-tall dragon or dinosaur, complete with claws and spiked tail. It's made entirely of scrap metal.
Indeed, all the art created by Allen and Teri Miles has a prehistoric/industrial feel. There's a piranha made partially of what looks like saw blades. And there's a chopper with real chompers courtesy of a large animal skull being used as the fuel tank.
"Our stuff can stay outside in all seasons," Allen Miles explains. You'd be hard-pressed to find a spot for it inside. On to the next fest.
Fest four: Ah, the Fine Craft Exhibition at the Oakbrook Center mall. I'm not sure it qualifies as a festival, but what the heck. Compared to the Wheaton and Naper Settlement fests, this is somewhat boring. Most booths display things you can find other places in the mall. Except for maybe the Herb Johnson booth displaying a giant metal hummingbird with jewel eyes gazing over a cache of metal daisies. There are metal dragonflies, fish and moths to match. I'm not sure why they appeal to me other than their rarity/oddity. I've found a new appreciation for heavy metal.
Fest five: It's well into the afternoon now, and I can't believe I haven't even seen a ridiculously large pile of greasy French fries yet, much less eaten one. So it's on to day three of Itasca Fest. When I arrive, I'm stunned. An entire line of food booths with no lines at all. Pulled pork sandwich, deep-fried chips and lemonade, here I come. Once done, one attraction draws me in. There are free stilt-walking lessons. The key is to keep your balance on a much narrower base than you're used to, with no help from your arms because you must hold onto the stilts. I do OK, but maybe Ishould've gone to the learn-to-make-giant bubbles tent instead. With all the reader e-mails I get about being full of hot air, I'd have natural talent. But the day is growing short. On to the next fest.
Fest six: At Summerfest in Glendale Heights, I follow the crowd to the source of audible laughter. Ah, yes. Teams of children are wearing helmets with cups glued to the top. Adults fill the cups with water and the kids walk a line and empty the cup into a bucket without removing the helmet. The result is lots of water on the kids, not so much in the buckets. There's nothing quite like watching adults laugh and point at kids to put the world in perspective. After laughing at the adults who are laughing at the kids, I decide it's time to wrap the fest-a-thon up with a grand finale.
Fest seven: The last fest is Glen Ellyn's inaugural jazz fest. It's been in the works for three years. With that much planning, I'm expecting something special. As I arrive, Paulinho Garcia and John Moulder are playing a Bossa Nova appropriate for their Brazilian style. Jazz fans have packed Main Street for a full downtown block.
As I sit and listen I decide the fest has a decidedly Ravinia feel to it, except there's asphalt under us instead of grass and table cloths instead of picnic blankets. It has a soothing impact, perfect to end the day.
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