Some interesting newsmakers aren't the usual newsmakers
We don't always have to look to Hollywood, Washington or Wrigley Field to find people with the most-interesting or even most influential lives.
Where do you go to meet the most interesting people?
Well, not far. If the past week or so is any indication, they're just around the corner. Some cases in point:
• Patti Volpert, 57, Gurnee. By day, a keeper of records for the Lincolnshire Police Department. Two weeks a year, a storm chaser, racing down Tornado Alley with a unique tour group trying to get as close as possible to the most violent weather. Why? It's "fascinating," she says.
• William Kaper Jr., 70, Barrington Hills. Lawyer, collector, deal maker. Something of a familiar bootstrap rags-to-riches story. Fired from his first three jobs as a lawyer, he eventually makes a killing in real estate. Now, he tinkers with things like precious oil paintings and remarkable memorabilia. Think Abraham Lincoln's opera glasses from the night he died or Clark Gable's bomber jacket or John Wayne's eye patch from when he played Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit." Any of those items sound appealing? Talk to Kaper, if you have a few million dollars burning a hole in your pocket. He'll make you a deal.
• Sally Matay, Joliet, and Dottie Darr, downstate Benton. Two women from distant parts of the state but with a shared love of animals. When Darr, a volunteer at a downstate animal shelter hooked up with Matay, who operates Illinois Animal Rescue in her "spare" time, they formed a pipeline that rescues hundreds of pets a year, migrating them from certain death in southern Illinois to waiting homes in the Chicago area.
• John Baier, Glenbard South High School physics teacher named this year's Illinois Outstanding High School Physics Teacher. His students recall not just his physics lessons, but his efforts in going to bat for them -- like constantly annoying the admissions department at Northwestern University to ensure that a prize pupil gets admitted or checking daily on the well-being of a student whose father had died.
• Before he died this week at the age of 81, Bertram Colbert led a fairly common life for people who are active in their suburban communities. President of his property owners association in Mundelein. Planning commissioner. Member of the historical society, his American Legion post and the Disabled Veterans Association. But his life story was anything but common. With ancestors ranging from the finance minister for France's King Louis XIV to a surveyor on the Erie Canal, he went to work as a teenager for Cook Electric in Chicago and found himself working on the Manhattan Project, the super-secret World War II effort that ultimately led to the development of the atomic bomb. After a stint in the Navy at the end of the war, he went to work for Enrico Fermi and helped develop the first atomic collider.
Remarkable stories all, and really just a few of the interesting people you met if you followed the Daily Herald during the past week.
Our daily life is filled with the legitimately interesting stories of famous political figures, accomplished athletes and engaging actors and musicians. But we don't always have to look to Hollywood, Washington or Wrigley Field to find people with the richest, most-interesting or even most influential lives. Sometimes, they're just around the corner.