Allan named Teacher of the Year

Peggy Allan, social studies and language arts teacher at Greenville Junior High School, was named 1988-89 Illinois Teacher of the Year during the State Board of Education's 15th annual Those Who Excel banquet in Springfield on September 30. She will receive a tuition waiver and one year of paid leave to pursue graduate studies at a state university as winner of the award and will represent Illinois in the National Teacher of the Year competition sponsored by Good Housekeeping magazine, the Council of Chief State School Officers and other national organizations.

Allan's winning instructional style includes such classroom activities as mock meetings of NATO and OPEC; student-produced films with titles such as "Saturday Night Live in Latin America"; development of marketing plans for products that students create to help them better understand the U.S. economy; and publishing books written and illustrated by students. Allan, a mother of three who also teaches an evening English composition course at Kaskaskia Community College in Centralia, encourages parents to participate in the educational process through conferences, phone calls, written reports and "Good News Notes" that keep them up-to-date with the bright side of their children's daily progress. Parents are also invited to serve as guest speakers and resource "experts" for various topics.

Boards and commissions

A series of appointments and reappointments to Illinois boards and commissions were announced by Gov. James R. Thompson in September. Unless otherwise noted, the positions do not require Senate confirmation and pay expenses only.

• State Board of Ethics — John Janicik of Clarendon Hills, an attorney with Mayer, Brown & Platt, replaced William F. Conlon. He will serve an unspecified term. Among other duties, the board administers the governor's personal economic disclosure program and deals with conflict of interest issues of a non-legal nature. It reports directly to the governor.
• Advisory Council on the Education of Handicapped Children — Reappointed to serve through June 30, 1991, were Stewart L. Adams of Rock Island, a substitute teacher; David O. Cooprider of Decatur, Macon County regional superintendent of schools; Marion Dodd of Dundee, an instructor at De Lourdes College in Des Plaines; Brenda Leigh Harrison of Springfield, director of legislation for the Illinois State Dental Society; Mary McDermed of Homewood, a substitute teacher; and Bonnie Perman of Oak Park, a teacher at the University of Illinois Childhood Laboratory School. The council reports to the State Board of Education, the governor and the General Assembly on unmet needs in the education of handicapped children and advises state and local educational agencies on programs and materials for these children.
• State Board of Higher Education — Bruce S. Chelberg of Arlington Heights, executive vice president of IC Industries Inc., was appointed to replace Jane H. Rader. If confirmed by the Senate he will serve through January 31, 1991. The board advises the governor on higher education matters, establishes general policies and recommends necessary legislation to the General Assembly.
• Nursing Home Administrators Licensing and Disciplinary Board — Appointed to this new board were George E. Davis of Lincoln, an administrator at St. Clara's Manor Inc.; Marvin Johnson of Rockford, executive director of the Fairhaven Christian Retirement Center; Jerry Neal of Pekin, vice president of development for Convalescent Management Associates Inc.; and Terrence Sullivan of Chicago, associate director of the Illinois Council on Long Term Care. Johnson's and Neal's terms expire January 1, 1991; Davis' and Sullivan's expire January 1, 1992. This new board adopts rules and regulations outlined under the state Nursing Home Administrators Licensing and Disciplinary Act, including the licensing of Illinois nursing homes and the hiring of support staff and investigators for the Department of Registration and Education.
• Illinois Racing Board — Newly appointed was retiree Saul A. Epton of Chicago to replace Ray Garrison. Cecil Troy of Chicago, president of Grove Fresh Distributors, and Ralph Gonzalez of Jacksonville, chief executive officer of John Deere Life Insurance Company, were reappointed. The board has jurisdiction over and supervises all race meetings, racing organizations doing business in the state and all persons on racing grounds. It also issues licenses authorizing pari-mutuel or certificate system wagering. Board members receive $150 per diem plus expenses, and the appointments require Senate confirmation.
• Board of State Fair Advisors — Al S. Greco of Springfield, finance and administration director for the Illinois Department of Transportation, replaced John P. Clark. His term expires January 16, 1989. The board advises the director of the Department of Agriculture on the operation of the state fairs at DuQuoin and Springfield and their grounds.
• State Council on Vocational Education —Ina Minsky of Des Plaines, a career counselor with Jewish Vocational Service, replaced

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Marilyn A. Kushak. She will serve an unspecified term. The council advises the State Board of Education and the governor on vocational education and job training programs, current workforce needs, and programs and services for the handicapped.

Appointments, reappointments to Human Rights Authority

Part of the Guardianship and Advocacy Commission, the Human Rights Authority has regional offices throughout the state. These offices investigate complaints of alleged disability rights violations in nursing homes and other facilities for the disabled and recommend solutions. They are staffed by 81 volunteers appointed by the commission.

Appointments and reappointments made at the commission's September 15 meeting include:

• In Region 1A (Rockford) — Reappointed were Deb Clicquennoi, a service provider for the mentally ill in Freeport; George E. Davis, a service provider for the developmentally disabled in Rockford; and Jean Joyce of Cedarville.
• In Region 2C (Chicago) — Appointed was Cheryl R. Hoiseth, sole proprietor of Hoiseth Associates in Evanston.
• In Region 3A (Springfield) — Philip R. Kepley of Pittsfield, executive director of the Counseling Center of Pike County, and Colette M. Smeltzer of Springfield, a volunteer in the mental health human services field for more than 15 years, were appointed. Richard Behl, a service provider for vocational rehabilitation in Springfield, was reappointed.

Vonachen elected ISCC board chairman

Jay R. Vonachen of Peoria, president of Vonachen Industrial Supplies Inc., was elected chairman of the board of directors of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce (ISCC) in September. The five-year board member served as vice chairman in 1984 and 1985 and was a founding member of the chamber's Small Business Council in 1976. Currently chair of the Illinois Chamber Political Action Committee, Vonachen succeeds Edward J. Filiatrault as ISCC president.

Newly elected vice chairmen are Jay Fernandes of Rockford and Deane R. Stewart of Urbana. Returning vice chairmen are John R. Conrad of Chicago, David L. Musgrave of Robinson, Harry J. Seigle of Elgin and Gilbert H. Todd of Jacksonville. John H. Beirise of Chicago is the new ISCC treasurer. All officers serve one-year terms.

Thirteen state business leaders were elected to their first two-year terms on the ISCC board in September. Six are Chicago residents: James J. Brasher, Alan S. Dean, Alan S. Golboro, Kathy B. McKirdy, Peter B. Norton and John A. Wing. Other new board members include Dan Heine of Freeport, Fred Krosner of Rockford, Charles L. Lee of Centralia, Paul F. Ohman of Moline, Douglas J. Schmalz of Decatur, Eugene A. Stevenson of Glenview and William D. Swanson of Granite City. Board members may serve a maximum of six years.

Edgar named NASS president

Secy. of State Jim Edgar, acting president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) since April, was installed as the organization's president during the group's 71st annual conference in Portland, Ore., in July. He took over as acting president when the previous president, Montana Secy. of State Jim Waltermire, died in an airplane crash. Edgar will serve until July 1989.

One of Edgar's priorities for the organization, which works to improve and coordinate the services of its members nationwide, is to make NASS "a more forceful national presence by becoming a more active partner in the Council of State Governments."

Other appointments

Following an intensive national search, Richard J. Miguel of Worthington, Ohio, was named assistant state superintendent for adult, vocational and technical education for the Illinois State Board of Education. Miguel, formerly associate director of the National Center for Research in Vocational Education at Ohio State University, assumed his new duties on November 16. In the past he has been a master teacher at Hillspoint School in Westport, Conn.; an evaluation and planning consultant for the U.S. Department of Education; and a curriculum consultant to Ohio State University.

Thomas W. Green was appointed communications chief for the Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse (DASA) on September 15. He has over 12 years experience in broadcasting and has been involved in substance abuse prevention. He has been a speaker for the Illinois Broadcasters Association's Operation ADAPT (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention Talks), a program aimed at talking to youths about the dangers of drinking and driving, and he has served as board vice president of the Mental Health Association of Macon County. Based in DASA's Springfield office, Green is responsible for all DASA media and public relations.

University of Illinois assistant athletics director Wayne R. Williams is the new athletics development director for the Southern Illinois University Foundation in Carbondale.

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Appointed October 1, his efforts will be focused on fundraising. For the past seven years, Williams has headed UFs St. Louis office, overseeing athletics operations in the metro area and southern Illinois. He is a two-time graduate of SIU-C.

Barbara A. Gordon, executive director of the Lake County Community Action Project, was elected first vice president of the National Association of Community Action Agencies (NACAA) at its national convention in September in Dallas, Texas. She is presently also serving a second term as president of the Illinois Community Action Association. In her new national post, Gordon will help shape public policy affecting the nation's 32 million poor. The NACAA consists of more than 900 nonprofit and government anti-poverty agencies.

DePaul alumni contributions aid College of Law

A skills center and a scholarship fund are the results of several major contributions by alumni of DePaul University's College of Law.

The Lawyering Skills Center has been made possible by contributions from Chicago trial attorney Robert A. Clifford ($100,000); the Chicago law firm of Owens, Owens & Rinn through its principals Denis J. Owens, John E. Owens Jr. and Vincent G. Rinn ($30,000); Leonard M. Ring of Leonard M. Ring & Associates ($250,000); and Robert A. Whitebloom of the Chicago law firm of Fisch, Lansky & Greenburg ($30,000). According to law school dean John C. Roberts, the new center "will give DePaul one of the nation's most sophisticated facilities for teaching the critical skills of negotiation, mediation, trial practice and appellate argument." Construction of the center's multipurpose courtroom, conference/seminar room, large classroom and four new faculty offices — located on the sixth floor of O'Malley Place, 23 E. Jackson Blvd. — is set to begin next summer.

Another alumni contribution of $25,000 will start a scholarship fund which will be named after the donor, John Powers Crowley. It is hoped that the initial contribution will grow to $150,000 and permanently endow three annual $2,500 scholarships. In addition, the fund will support two annual awards for law students in the trial practice program: one for the best student paper on ethical problems in trial practice ($1,000) and another for two students to represent DePaul in national trial advocacy competitions ($500 each).

Illinois wins a Ford Foundation award — again!

For the fourth time in three years, an Illinois initiative has won a prestigious Ford Foundation and Harvard University Innovations in State and Local Government award. Project Match, a program that this year helped about 400 welfare recipients in Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing project learn practical skills needed to get and keep a job and get reemployed if a job was lost, will receive $100,000 to upgrade a client tracking system and create a model package for others to use.

Frustrated by her experience in placing single teen mothers in jobs as part of her work at a neighborhood health clinic, Toby Herr started Project Match three years ago. Herr, who still maintains her own caseload, managed to scrape together the project's first $36,000 from local businesses and foundations. She then appealed to the state for matching funds. The state, attempting to launch its own welfare-to-work program, agreed to fund Herr's project as a demonstration. Today, Project Match has five caseworkers and a budget of $272,000 ($204,000 from the state and the balance from individuals and foundations). Of the project's 400 clients this year, 245 were placed in full-or part-time jobs and 126 in training or degree-equivalency programs.

Project Match, one of 10 1988 award recipients, was chosen from a field of more than 970 entries submitted by states, counties and cities nationwide. This is the last year for these awards. Between now and 1990 the Ford Foundation plans to expand the awards by creating five or six regional programs. Each will be administered by a school of government at a selected university within each region.

Clean coal technology awards to two Illinois projects

A pair of Illinois projects won Innovative Clean Coal Technology program grants totaling over $161 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The winning projects, announced by Gov. Thompson in September, are the coal gasification/combined cycle repowering of City Water, Light and Power's (CWLP) Lakeside Station in Springfield and the installation of a low-pollutant burner at the Southern Illinois Power Cooperative in Marion.

The CWLP project, due to be completed in July 1998 at a total cost of $309.4 million, will receive $154.4 million in federal funds and $32 million in state coal development bond funds. The balance will come from private sources. The repowering operation will be conducted by Combustion Engineering Company, developers of the gasifier. The addition of an air blown gasifier, gas clean-up equipment and a gas turbine is expected to double the unit's capacity, increase its heat rate and remove 95-99 percent of the plant's sulfur emissions.

At Southern Illinois Power, Transalta Resources Investment Corporation will retrofit an existing boiler with the Rockwell Low NO/SO

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Burner to demonstrate the system's ability to diminish pollutants. The retrofit is expected to cost a total of $13.58 million. The Marion project will receive $6.8 million in federal funds and $2.7 million in state coal development funds. Private sources have been tapped to cover the additional costs. The project is expected to be completed by March 1991.

Illinois is also involved in a Wisconsin project receiving $5.08 million in federal funds. Illinois' $90,000 contribution will cover procurement, preparation and delivery of approximately 30 tons of the state's high sulfur coal to be used during Phase I of the project (April 1989-September 1990). Developed by Babcock & Wilcox, the project will demonstrate a unique retrofit technology for controling nitrogen oxides emissions, a common drawback of burning Illinois coal.

The Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources and private industry submitted 10 funding plans to DOE last May. Over $61 million has been committed in past years to support projects designed to burn Illinois coal more cleanly.

Woods Charitable Fund announces awards in Chicago and Nebraska

Woods Charitable Fund Inc., a private foundation making grants in the Chicago area and in Lincoln, Neb., awarded $369,100 to a total of 25 nonprofit organizations in September. Eighteen of those awards went to groups in Chicago, including $20,000 to Citizens for a Better Environment for the Chicago Area Toxics Assistance Project, which is helping local groups establish "community right-to-know" ordinances aimed at reducing toxic threats for area residents; and $15,000 to the Chicago Electric Options Campaign, a coalition of civic and community groups trying to involve the public in decisions regarding the city's future source of electric power.

Organizations granted renewal funding included the United Citizens Organization of East Chicago, Ind., for its efforts to resolve education and economic issues in northwest Indiana ($19,000); Illinois Issues for a series of magazine articles on community organizing in Illinois and a book compiling those articles ($18,000); and the Rogers Park Tenants Committee for promoting the priorities of low and moderate income residents in that community ($11,500).

Last spring Woods awarded $720,900 to 37 nonprofit organizations in the Chicago area and Lincoln, Neb. The private philanthropic foundation was started by Frank H. Woods, his wife Nelle Cochrane Woods and their three sons. It makes grants to tax-exempt groups in Chicago and Lincoln that are working for wider citizen involvement in solving community problems, greater local government accountability, school reform and the self-sufficiency of lower income families.

DENR awards waste-to-energy grant

The Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources (DENR) has awarded a $250,000 grant for the construction of an integrated wood waste-to-energy system to the state's largest sawmill, Huey Forest Products of Arenzville. According to David S. Buckner, director of DENR's solid waste and alternative energy programs, the agency has been working with Huey for nearly four years to develop a system that would help the company solve its serious wood waste problems.

"The project, which has an estimated cost of $2.3 million, will consist of a wood-fired boiler that will not only create steam to power a turbine to produce electricity but will also produce waste heat that will be used to dry hard woods in five new kilns," Buckner said. The wood waste-to-energy project, scheduled to be in use by next March, will allow the lumber company to produce enough electricity to power independently its sawmill operations as well as give the firm the on-site capacity to prepare its green lumber for use. Huey currently pays to send the wood to be dried at another location.

One of the project's long-term goals is to demonstrate and transfer its technology to other industries so that certain wastes can be used to create energy instead of adding to the already sizeable solid waste burden facing the state. It is estimated that over 417,000 tons per year of sawmill wastes are generated in Illinois. Huey, for example, currently disposes its wood wastes on a five-acre site, where some piles reach 30 feet in height.

Percy, Shils honored by The Rockford Institute

Novelist Walker Percy and sociologist Edward Shils received the 1988 Ingersoll Prizes awarded by the Ingersoll Foundation, the philanthropic division of Ingersoll Milling Machine Company of Rockford. The awards are administered by The Rockford Institute. Both men were honored at a black-tie dinner on November 4 at Chicago's Drake Hotel.

Percy, winner of the T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing, is best known for his works of fiction, including The Thanatos Syndrome, The Second Coming and The Moviegoer. The latter novel, published in 1961, won the National Book Award the following year.

Shils, named to receive the Richard M. Weaver Award for Scholarly Letters, collaborated with prominent American sociologist Talcott Parsons on Toward a General Theory of Action. The publication, released in 1951, influenced an entire generation of social

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thought. Shil's accomplishments have earned him sociology's International Balzan Prize, the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in that field. He is distinguished service professor at the University of Chicago and an honorary fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as well as the London School of Economics.

The awards, which acknowledge authors whose works affirm the moral principles of Western civilization, carry a cash prize of $15,000 each.

Other honors

■ Frank Bodine, director of the Illinois Commerce Commission's (IlCC) rate design department in the public utilities division, has been awarded a fellowship to attend a nine-month residence program, culminating in a master of science in management for information executives at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He was Illinois' only fellowship recipient. Candidates were nominated by state, federal and international regulatory agencies, with the final selections made by a committee of USC faculty members. The inaugural class will consist of 20 senior managers from all segments of the telecommunications industry. The program is designed to broaden the management skills of information executives through the study of industry-related issues, cases and forecasts. Bodine has been a member of the IlCC staff since 1984. Tom Stack has taken over Bodine's duties during his absence.

■ Verlyn and Martha Roskam of Glen Ellyn are recipients of one of the President's Volunteer Action Awards for their Educational Assistance Limited (EAL) program, which provides scholarships to students unable to find college financial assistance elsewhere. Mr. Roskam began the program after he was given the opportunity to attend college through the generosity of a family who had lost their son during World War II. A bartering system, EAL solicits contributed goods from companies and then gives these goods to colleges. The colleges then make scholarships available to needy students in the name of the donating companies. Nationally, donations from nearly 100 companies to over 125 colleges, have generated $3 million, making higher education possible for over 450 students.□

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