Editor's note: ESPN and others are reporting that Ron Santo was elected to the Hall of Fame today, Dec. 5, 2011—just about the way Kurt Wehrmeister said it would happen. In honor of the occasion, we're re-running Kurt's column, originally presented on Geneva Patch on Dec. 6, 2010.   Anyone who saw Ron Santo wear his heart on his sleeve over the last half-century—during his 1960-'74 playing career, or during his 21 seasons as a Cubs radio broadcaster—felt the loss last Friday morning when they heard that he'd finally lost his battle against diabetes and bladder cancer, and was dead at 70. And …

Ken Payleitner, whose death last Friday afternoon mercifully freed him from a painful and lengthy battle with cancer, about two weeks short of what would have been his 85th birthday, was principal of Harrison Street School on Geneva’s East Side for fully 32 school years—from August 1953 through June 1985. By my very rough calculation, this means that at least 1,500 (probably closer to 1,800 or even 2,000) current and former Genevans, who would now range in age from their early 30s to their late 60s, were fortunate enough to have him as their elementary-school principal. And “fortunate” is an …

When I spoke at my father’s funeral in October 2009, I fear that some of the attendees may have been a bit taken aback at my honest assessment of the man—especially as I contrasted him with my mother, who had died 14 years before him. Though Lois Noel Wehrmeister was never a regular churchgoer (during my lifetime, anyway), she lived her life by the Scriptural admonition that we are all our brothers’ keeper; that to do His will, we must always seek to help those less fortunate. Mom gave thousands of dollars to relatives and friends who were down on their luck, as well as to people she barely …

All I can tell you for sure is that it’s certainly not me. That, and I’m not going to try to find out—and neither should you. (More on that at the end.) Not that I wouldn’t have loved to be able to write the check to make possible what an anonymous donor of $450,000 accomplished this past week—enabling the Geneva Board of Education to solicit bids so that work can promptly begin at the end of May to rip out the muddy mess that Burgess Field has been for nearly every November of its 36-year existence, and to replace it by late August with a modern artificial-turf surface designed to stand up …

You’d think, by this point in my life, I’d know better. It was last Sept. 17 when I went to visit Stan Esping in his apartment at The Holmstad, and when I snapped the informal portrait of him, in his favorite recliner, which appears here. I didn’t stay awfully long, maybe a half-hour; I was there to interview him briefly about the fact that, as far as anyone knew, he was Geneva Township’s longest-tenured resident in consecutive years, and that I was going to do a brief piece for Patch on that fact. Toward the end of our visit, I asked if I could call him to come have lunch with him. His face …

It became obvious this week that I’m a bit out of touch as to what goes on at high school dances. (Given my AARP eligibility, this perhaps shouldn’t come as a huge surprise.) Reading Denise Linke’s piece for Geneva Patch last week, along with other local coverage of Geneva High School Principal Tom Rogers’ decision to prohibit the so-called practice of “grinding” at GHS-sponsored dances, I sputtered, incredulous and bug-eyed, over my cereal bowl: “They do what? They thrust how? The girls wiggle their whats into where?  Then they bend over and do what?!” I had never before felt more like slack…

As I walked through the doors into the stone-floored entry foyer, my father leaned down to me with a grin and pointed out a clothes rack—which held several nondescript navy-blue blazers in what looked like varying sizes, and next to them, several skinny, quiet-print neckties hanging on a rack. “See that?” Dad said. “A man can’t go into the dining room here unless he has on a jacket and tie—and if you walk in here not dressed properly, that’s what they make you put on. This is a classy place.” It was a cold evening in late-November 1966. The Mill Race Inn was indeed a very classy place—and …

A Geneva Patch commenter identifying himself as “Jim J” took issue Saturday morning with Beth Bales’ well-detailed contention that Illinois State University, depending on the situation and the student, can be a better bargain than the University of Illinois. I am one of the friends that Beth mentioned who, like Jim J, is a U of I alumnus—in my case, a bachelor’s degree in journalism, 1979. So I suppose I, too, could have reacted with similar incredulity. But all things considered, I happen to agree with Beth. My wife and I would have been perfectly willing to scrimp for the moderately higher …

To me, holiday-season movies are (and should be) very different from the bracing, thought-provoking new films we might go to see in January or February. The features we pop into our DVD player during this week before Christmas—settling onto the couch with a piece of pizza or a bowl of chili after getting the final gifts wrapped and under the tree—are not something in which we're seeking anything new or challenging; on the contrary, we're looking for comfort cinema; to enjoy traditional touchstones of holiday seasons of 20, or 30, or 50 years ago. This is why, I think, most remakes or sequels …

I have no bone to pick with anything that the Kane County Chronicle's John Puterbaugh wrote in last Friday's full-page feature about the new "deluxe" hamburger restaurants opening in the area—most notably Smashburger, which opened a few weeks back in Batavia; and Tom & Eddie's, which opened on Friday in Geneva Commons. What I had to chuckle and shake my head at was the piece's big banner headline: "Upscale burgers hitting the scene." As though the only burgers you could previously get around here were the skinny, pathetic things that are served by the dozen in White Castle bags, or the ones …

If only Nixon could go to China, then only a chronic speeder can comment with any legitimacy on another speeder. (I'm not sure that analogy makes much sense, but it'll have to do; I'm late as it is and don't want to have to really floor it on the way to make my haircut appointment this afternoon.) I received my Illinois driver's license from Secretary of State Michael J. Howlett's Aurora office on Indian Trail on Aug. 15, 1973; I had turned 16 five weeks earlier. In the 37 years since then, I've never had my license suspended, and I've never been arrested for a DUI. But, yes, I've had my …

My wife and I were very active in one of Geneva's churches roughly 15 years ago, when our boys were in elementary school. It was a small congregation whose intimacy and friendliness we loved—but part of the trade-off for its small size was the fact that anyone who showed any willingness to be active was inevitably, if gently, pressured to become VERY active. I was a member of the church choir, and taught a section of Sunday school, as did Judy; she also was asked to serve on the Worship Committee. In that latter role, part of her responsibility was to work the phones on weeknights among the …

I spent a memorable hour in front of a microphone early last week, with the man for whom I first went to work as a young reporter before I graduated from college, more than 32 years ago. It was one of the last things he said during that hour that was the most memorable—and disconcerting. Margaret Selakovich at the Geneva History Center had asked me to conduct an interview for the national StoryCorps project with Allen Mead, who spent his entire 47-year journalism career (1939-86) with The Geneva Republican, as reporter, editor, and ultimately publisher. StoryCorps is an independent not-for-…

I must admit now that I've generally never been much good at predicting election outcomes, either locally, regionally or nationwide. In the first national election I was privileged to vote in, at age 19, on Nov. 2, 1976, I went behind a white canvas curtain and, in a completely enclosed booth (perhaps if we still did things this way election judges wouldn't have to be so damn paranoid about cameras?), marked a paper ballot with a pencil—for Gerald R. Ford for president. (Yes, I'd do it again. If it weren't for the fact that he's dead.) And I thought there's no way that a smiling, peanut-…

For any of what follows to make sense, you first must read Rick's account of his run-in with an election judge Tuesday morning for exercising First Amendment rights at his Geneva polling place. When Rick Nagel and I were in journalism school at the University of Illinois in the late 1970s, we were taught that, unless you were a paparazzo like Ron Galella and someone like Jackie Onassis had gotten a court injunction against you, you could take pictures of whatever your camera lens could see, as long as you were standing on public property. But as previously noted in this space, a lot of things…

Whenever I'm at home on Sunday morning (and too often with my job, I'm not), one of the simple pleasures of my week for more than 30 years has been to rise without an alarm, to throw on jeans, sweats or a bathrobe (depending on how late I awaken), and to fix a pot of coffee and toast a bagel while switching on the CBS program Sunday Morning. Hosted from 1979 to 1994 by the late Charles Kuralt, and ever since then by Charles Osgood, it's always been an amalgam of interesting features, some with a recent-news peg, some not, but always done at a leisurely pace that acknowledges the intelligence …

A tough issue, alcohol is. No sane or responsible person would argue against appropriate enforcement of the laws on service of alcoholic beverages to minors, on a retailer serving an already intoxicated patron, or certainly on driving under the influence. And yet . . . For every community and every municipal police department, there are certain times, certain events, some seasonal and some not, in which law enforcement has, for generations, taken pains to walk a fine line between two extremes: on one hand, flagrantly ignoring violations of the law, allowing wasted twentysomethings to do …

Two days ago in this space, I challenged the Illinois High School Association office to "grow a spine," and to remove the East St. Louis Flyers from the 2010 Illinois state football tournament after what appeared to be a blatant and prolonged flouting of the rules with regard to the eligibility of its athletes. On Tuesday, at the lunch hour, I must admit, and applaud the fact, that the IHSA office did just that. Citing the fact that East St. Louis defensive lineman Charles Tigue—a nephew of Head Coach Darren Sunkett—resided in Belleville, well outside the East St. Louis school district, the …

According to the Illinois High School Association as reported by the Belleville News-Democrat, the East St. Louis School District has provided the IHSA with documents indicating that Charles Tigue lived with a relative within East St. Louis District 189 during the 2008, 2009 and 2010 football seasons.Tigue's North Virginia Avenue address in Belleville, which is what was listed in his 2009 armed-robbery indictment (he was charged on two counts, from incidents occurring in 2009, not this past summer), was where Tigue lived during the 2007 football season only, according to documents provided by…

On Nov. 29, 2008, Geneva High's 13-0 football team made it to a state championship game for the first time in 33 years, reaching the Illinois 7A title game at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, matched against the powerhouse of the southern half of the state, East St. Louis. The Vikings played a tremendous first half to take a 7-6 halftime lead into the locker room. The second half was a different story, as the Flyers' blazing speed, from backs and receivers alike, and its Division I-sized line, finally wore down the Vikings. East St. Louis scored 27 unanswered points and the game was basically …