Lessons learned at NIU come back to the fore

Jim Davis, NIU Class of '77. B.S. in Journalism.

Frankly, I hadn't been thinking about that a lot lately. Until this past week.

In that time, I thought more than once of the late Joe Marsh, my J-101 professor, who let me into the program after I had flunked the typing test. I told him I was taking private lessons to get my proficiency up to snuff.

And where are you taking these lessons, he asked.

"Uh, from my mother," I said.

And is she a certified typing instructor? Well, no.

Dr. Marsh rolled his eyes, said he'd need to re-test me in a few weeks, but never did. Thank God. I might flunk that test today.

I remembered how in the middle of a lesson on something mundane, he got quite serious for a minute, and said something like, "Wait until the first time you have to ask the family of a deceased person for a photo. It won't be easy."

At the time, I thought, "Why's he telling us that? I'm not gonna have to do that."

As you might assume, I was a Johnny-come-lately to the field of journalism, and naively figured I'd get my j-degree, and land a job writing deep pieces for Newsweek. As I got deeper into j-school it quickly sunk in that, upon graduation, I'd be looking at a job for a weekly newspaper, and darned happy to find one.

Dr. Joe's prophecy came true. I can't recall the first time I had to do the ghoul patrol, but he was right: It wasn't easy. I do recall getting assigned to cover the wake for a high school kid who had committed suicide after a friend had committed suicide. It wasn't easy, and I'm not sure I did a particularly good job.

I thought about all this again in the past week as we dispatched reporters to Carol Stream, Carpentersville, Cicero, Mendota and Westchester. Not just to ask for photos, but to ask family members, friends for their recollections of the slain NIU students. Yes, some people take exception to our intrusion, but far more often than not, many understand that we're trying to paint a vivid picture of Dan Parmenter's heroism, Gayle Dubowski's beautiful singing voice. Both those stories were captured through sensitive interviews with family and friends by reporter Jake Griffin.

I thought, too, about another former professor, the late Irv Kummerfeldt, a mentor and the man who got me the interview that landed me a job two days after graduation -- county reporter for the late Daily Journal.

I owed a lot to Drs. K and M, and even though I was making starvation wages, was more than happy to donate money back to the NIU journalism department. As time went on, the reminders for donations diminished, and I developed a sense that I had done my fair share.

It hit me this week -- especially after I read sports columnist Barry Rozner's poignant piece on the need for Huskie pride -- that maybe it was time to give a little something back.

So, I looked up the man in charge of gifts and donations on the NIU Web site, found out that a Feb. 14 Student Scholarship Fund had been established in honor of the five students. I wasn't the first to think of this. There has been "an outpouring" of such inquiries, said John Bass, director of gift and estate planning. If you're interested, go to the NIU Web site, www.niu.edu, or call (877) 448-2648.

And, as I was putting the finishing touches on this column, a memo from Colin O'Donnell, our vice president of operations and an NIU grad, announced that the company would be matching any donations employees might want to make to the fund.