Daily Herald columnist Dave Heun looks back on 20 years of writing his column, 'Talk of the Town'

Twenty years ago, former Daily Herald editor John Lampinen contacted me with a pitch to become a columnist.

I freelanced as a sports writer for the paper for about a year while working full-time in marketing, dabbling in sales and writing about laser technology at a medical equipment company in St. Charles.

So it was that 20 years ago this week, my face turned up on the pages of a local newspaper again - after 24 years of working at the Kane County Chronicle for the Paschal family of St. Charles and then the Shaw family of Dixon.

It wasn't the easiest task in the world to write a weekly column and twice weekly for a few years when working at another full-time job and continuing to cover sports events for the Herald on the weekends.

But it just felt like something I needed to keep doing for my own sake and that of loyal readers. I'm still at it, even though I finished my full-time writing career nearly two years ago after 11 years at New York-based American Banker and PaymentsSource, working in downtown Chicago for half of those years and at home the other half.

I've worked with several city section editors and photo editors at the Daily Herald, the most recent being Neighbor section editor Susan Klovstad. They have all been great - as people and editors. I can't say enough about them.

As part reflection and thank you for letting me do this for so long, I felt it might be interesting to note what I wrote about in the first "Talk of the Town" column I did for the Daily Herald on Sunday, Aug. 3, 2003.

Honestly, there was nothing particularly exciting about that first effort, but it showed I would be willing to write about or comment on just about anything.

If something about the column could be considered the least bit unusual, it's that my mug shot is probably from around 2006 or so. But that happens when you are a freelancer who has been in a Daily Herald office just a few times.

We'll consider it a reverse Dorian Gray, one in which the photo has stayed the same while the person ages. Dorian had some sort of spell on him that allowed him to stay the same while his portrait in his attic aged substantially.

For now, (pipe in the haunting music), we'll settle for the mug shot that never changes.

Here's what was on my mind and yours 20 years ago.

That traffic light

It doesn't seem like a big deal now because it's probably been about 20 years since the traffic light went up on West Main Street at the west-side post office in St. Charles.

But it was a big enough deal to be the first item in my first column, alerting readers that IDOT had approved the installation of that light and they could expect to see it up before the end of that year.

The city had been going back and forth with the state about the need for the light. Still, the traffic numbers apparently weren't what IDOT needed to see to justify another light on what was becoming a busy street with the Randall Road intersection not too far away.

Ultimately, the traffic headache of trying to get in and out of that new post office came to a satisfying conclusion with the new light.

Care for Don Rogers

I let readers know that former St. Charles Police Chief Don Rogers was at the Rosewood Nursing Home, recovering from surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Sadly, Rogers, who was chief in St. Charles for 19 years in the 1960s and 1970s, passed away just a week later. We were left to remember his time on the force, his contributions as a key player in forming the Tri-Com 911 emergency center in central Kane County, and his service with the 2nd Marine Division in the South Pacific during World War II.

He was a member of numerous organizations and served 12 years on the fire and police commission in Batavia.

An ode to Ellen Johnsen

To get an item in about one of my favorite "characters" in the Tri-Cities, I mentioned that the Tri-Cities Exchange Club had named one of the trophies for its annual junior golf outing in honor of a member, the late Ellen Johnsen.

In a bit of irony, Ellen never played much golf that I knew of. She was too busy waiting tables at the Hotel Baker and following the ups and downs of her beloved Chicago Cubs.

However, she did have golf in the family, as her son, Dennis Johnsen, was a well-known golf pro at Pheasant Run then. He had previously worked as the head pro at Pottawatomie Park Golf Course in St. Charles.

Praise for a former teacher

It was a bit surprising to discover that one of my grade-school teachers from St. Raphael Catholic School in Naperville was living in St. Charles when I first came to the area in 1977.

Terry Hooten was my sixth-grade math teacher, and, as it turns out, it was the first teaching job of his career. He eventually ended up at Naperville Central High School. I never quite made it to his classes in high school. I was in the general math world, struggling to pass algebra or geometry. Mr. Hooten was teaching higher-level stuff.

Sadly, the timing of my first Daily Herald column coincided with his unfortunate passing from cancer. So, I wrote about him and his efforts to share his math knowledge with so many kids throughout his long career.

I never got a chance to tell him I was sorry for goofing around so much in his class or not allowing him to let my brain grasp mathematics. It was my loss, really. I could have had decent grade-point averages if not for math or, to a lesser extent, science.

To this day, I am nothing short of terrible in math.

How the column evolved

When the first column came out, everyone seemed happy about it. John Lampinen even called and said it was exactly what he hoped to see - a column with a half dozen or more items on various topics.

Over time, I felt a bigger benefit to the paper might be if I made the first item of the column longer, more of a short story, followed by a few shorter things.

It took a little pressure off others on the staff to chase down every potential feature story or human-interest profile. Also, it would call for a photo in most cases, helping with page layout and drawing more eyes to the column.

Hopefully, most readers feel the same about the column as we all did on that Sunday 20 years ago.

Things have changed, for sure. Social media posts "cover" many of the same sorts of things this column has featured for years, and those who hop on social media daily may even find that to be enough to satisfy their curiosity.

I also pick up ideas on those formats but generally find the right people to talk to to fill in the blanks about a new restaurant, business or event. I've also realized that a fair number of my readers don't pay attention to social media at all or have increasingly become frustrated with it.

As I did this week 20 years ago, I encourage people to continue sending ideas to my email address listed below. Back then, I also shared the physical address of the Daily Herald's office in St. Charles. That office is gone, but Facebook is not. You can send me notes through Facebook Messenger as well.

dheun@sbcglobal.net