southtownstar.suntimes.com

Vickroy: Crete mom needs votes to get to Bake-Off

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:14:00 -0500

Julie Beckwith hopes the third time is the charm. The two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off finalist once again is up for the final round of competition, but this time, she needs America’s help to get there. “The competition has changed quite a bit this year,” said Beckwith, who lives in Crete and works as a speech and language pathologist at Talala School in Park Forest. Her Upside Down Tomato Basil and Chicken Tartlets were among 60 recipes chosen as semifinalists in the Sweet Treats and Starters category of this year’s competition. But only 34 of those can continue on to the finalist …

Vickroy: College grads swimming in debt

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:14:45 -0500

Student debt is the talk of the nation, especially with interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford Loans set to double on July 1, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. As Congress struggles to address the issue — a Senate bill to prevent the rate increase stalled last week and a Republican-introduced alternative also failed — college students and graduates across the nation are bracing for the worst. Here in Illinois, the average amount of debt being carried by 2011 graduates with student loans is more than $26,000, according to The Project on Student Debt. Combine that with a high 8.8 …

Vickroy: Measure of a great dad: love, respect, support and the occasional act of heroism

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:01:16 -0500

Long before he became her hero, flying out to the desert, renting a car and picking her up at a small-town hospital after she’d suffered a serious injury, Kevin McCaffrey was his daughter Caitlin McCaffrey’s, well, hero. “He’s always been my hero,” Caitlin said. “He’s the best.” “I don’t like that word, ‘hero,’ ” Kevin said, somewhat embarrassed by all the fuss. “I’m not a hero; I’m a dad. Any dad would have done what I did.” Maybe, but it was likely the lifelong series of events that led up to his heroic feat that compelled his daughter to want …

Vickroy: Competing for 45 years, she’s still bringing home the gold

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 13:19:11 -0500

What makes Mary Pat Bekta special? Well, we could start with the 100-plus medals she’s won in Special Olympics events, in which she’s been competing since the Games began in 1968. Or we could talk about her compassion and love for just about everyone. When other athletes cry because they didn’t win a competition, Mary Pat comforts them by sharing her medals, letting the others wear them for a time. Or we could look at the love she brings out in others. When it’s time to extend the sign of peace during Sunday Mass at St. Stephen Church in Tinley …

Vickroy: Girl’s garden blooms on, 20 years after her death

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:15:10 -0500

It’s love that keeps Nicole’s Garden blooming after all these years. Nicole Abramite was just 8 years old when she succumbed to Prader-Willi syndrome in the fall of 1992. As her family and friends struggled to deal with the loss, someone at Fierke Education Center in Oak Forest, where Nicole was a third-grader at the time, came up with an idea. Why not plant something in her memory? The students not only rallied around the suggestion, they helped raise money to buy a small pink profusion crab apple tree. On June 4, 1993, one day before Nicole would have turned …

Vickroy: Cyclists, drivers must take the high road

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 23:26:27 -0500

Can’t we all just move along? Safely. It’s time for motorists and cyclists to come to terms. State law recognizes the rights of both to use roadways in Illinois. That means cyclists have as much right as drivers to traverse Harlem Avenue in Tinley Park, Dixie Highway in Homewood and busy LaGrange Road through Frankfort and Orland Park. But that doesn’t mean bicyclists can pedal with reckless abandon. Both drivers and pedalers must adhere to the same rules of the road, in addition to laws specifically aimed at each group. So now that the weather is finally breaking and we’ll …

Vickroy: Split-second decision and life is thrown off course

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 17:36:31 -0500

In May 2010, Tiffani Ntanos had a plan. Among the first teens to graduate from the newly opened Lincoln-Way North High School, she would work for a few years, put away some money and then enroll in a cosmetology school in Chicago. The plan meant moving from the southwest suburbs into the heart of the city. It meant independence and freedom. It meant a future. Things were in motion on June 3, 2012, when Tiffani finally got a break from her waitress job at Zante Lounge in Orland Hills. For the first time in a long time, she’d be able …

Vickroy: Students learn that music is message

Thu, 30 May 2013 02:13:57 -0500

For what it’s worth, only a fortunate son could fight the power on the eve of destruction. No, you don’t have to be a Baby Boomer to know what that means. Music has long been a messenger of sentiment — giving issues such as racism, poverty and unfairness a beat and lyrical poignancy. It has been a way for generations, cultures and the oppressed to express themselves politically and emotionally to mass audiences. It’s also a reflection of its times. In John Duckhorn’s U.S. history class at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, music is an opportunity to work song …

Vickroy: 10-year-old a profile of courage, hope

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:12:15 -0500

Adam Sanchez is a builder. Houses, bridges, whole cities. Lately, though, the 10-year-old fan of Legos and the game Minecraft has become an architect of resilience. The son of a Chicago police officer, Adam was diagnosed with brain cancer the day before Thanksgiving. He has since undergone two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation. He lost the hair on the right side of his head but didn’t miss a day of school and even landed on the B honor roll. “He is amazing,” said his mom, Brenda Valadez, a single mother who works in the evidence and recovered property section of the …

Vickroy: Guiding knight: Lab gets woman where she needs to go

Wed, 22 May 2013 04:00:13 -0500

Up concrete stairs, around giant flowerpots and through throngs of bustling commuters, Kathy Austin makes her way to work each morning. Though she is virtually blind, only able to distinguish contrasts of light and dark, she makes getting from her home in the leafy suburb of Homewood to her office on the 10th floor of a Loop high rise look easy, partly because she has Solomon to guide her, partly because she doesn’t let much stop her from pursuing her dreams. “Going blind is the only horrible thing that’s ever happened to me,” she says. “It’s just one of those …

Vickroy: Gardens are proof that life goes on

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:31:56 -0500

“God gave us memories that we may have roses in December.” J. M. Barrie Since the beginning of time, man has sought comfort in tilling the earth. Gardens provide sustenance, joy and, increasingly, solace in times of grief. Flowers, trees and other plants are reminders that life does indeed go on. About six years ago, the Rev. Rod Reinhart began planting a memory garden on the south side of St. Joseph and St. Aidan Episcopal Church in Blue Island. He started with a couple of rose bushes and dedicated them to local people who had been killed either while serving …

Vickroy: Modern-day explorers to kids: Get out in wilderness

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 06:06:35 -0500

Khareah Horton stepped into the giant oversized parka and all but disappeared. The first-grader took one for the team when she volunteered to lead the “sled dogs” across the gymnasium at Wagoner School in Sauk Village. Not only was she barely visible beneath her fur-lined hood, she couldn’t stop laughing as her fellow classmates grabbed the leashes and lugged the bamboo transport carrier a good 20 feet. “Teamwork,” Dave Freeman said. “That’s what gets the job done.” Freeman and his wife, Amy, visited the school recently to tell pre-K through second-graders about their latest adventure — a three-year kayak/canoe/sled dog …

Vickroy: Mother’s reading habit led to son’s penchant for writing

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:30:40 -0500

Mothers impart a lot of things to their children: wisdom, advice, recipes. But sometimes the most endearing gift a mother leaves her son or daughter is a lifelong passion, something that sparks their interest, taps their creativity and engages them in the workings of the world. And sometimes such gifts are handed down unknowingly, more by example than instruction. Monica Joria didn’t become a writer until she recently began penning her autobiography. But in many ways, the 99-year-old South Sider and current resident of Smith Village in Chicago’s Morgan Park community lived the lifestyle of a writer — observing, analyzing …

Vickroy: Pennies from an angel to help special-needs dancers

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:18:31 -0500

At face value, the penny is worth next to nothing. But for those who believe in the power of serendipity, the penny can be priceless. As her sister, Linda, lay dying in 2000, Cathy Epstein-Faxel and her mother wondered how they might honor the 29-year-old’s memory. Then a friend gave Epstein-Faxel a copy of the poem “Pennies From Heaven” by Charles Mashburn. The work is a reminder that loved ones who have passed often send messages of hope in the most unsuspecting ways. It was meant to be a comfort, to get her family through the difficult times ahead. Little …

Vickroy: It’s no fib: You can grow figs in this climate

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 06:06:03 -0500

Long before humans cultivated wheat, barley or legumes, they grew fig trees. Some even suggest that figs were grown a thousand years before wheat and rye were domesticated. “For 98 percent of the time humans have been alive, it has been a starvation existence,” said William Pakosz, a Matteson dentist and lover of natural history. “It wasn’t until recent times that food has been plentiful for so many.” Back during much of those early hungry years, the fig tree was a symbol of survival. Its early spring blossom, called the breba, often was the first crop to be harvested. It …

Vickroy: Remembering Kaylah with music, poetry and new safety measures

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 06:34:07 -0500

A year ago this weekend, Kaylah Lentine was celebrating her 14th birthday at a sleepover party with friends. They sang, laughed and made a video parody of “The Hunger Games.” In a bittersweet nod to life’s unpredictability, those same friends, along with members of Kaylah’s large extended family, gathered Friday — Kaylah’s birthday — at Oak Lawn-Hometown Middle School to remember the girl who not only changed them for the better but changed them for good. The mourners sang, laughed and watched a snippet of Kaylah’s version of “The Hunger Games.” Kaylah died May 25, 2012, one day after she …

Vickroy: Get closer view of eagles’ new offspring

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 15:46:04 -0500

It’s not exactly a bird’s-eye view, but the public can now get even closer to a rare eagles’ nest in Palos Township. Cook County Forest Preserve officials have cleared a path north along the eastern banks of Tampier Slough, enabling bird watchers to get within 250 yards of the cottonwood tree that holds the giant eagles’ nest that was first discovered more than a year ago. “This is a closer and safer spot for people to watch for the birds, yet it’s far enough to keep the birds safe, too,” said Jim Phillips, fisheries biologist for the district. “We don’t …

Vickroy: Tireless teen earns Governor’s Volunteer Award

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 06:25:21 -0500

They’re small, soft and oh, so cute. Yet, these tiny pillows are strong enough to comfort the afflicted, cheer the saddened and remind even the most downtrodden that somebody cares. “You can see it in the smiles people give,” says Sarah Dynia. “You can definitely see the transformation in someone when you give them something. You can see the impact is way bigger than one small pillow.” Sarah, a sophomore at Mother McAuley High School, recently presented one of her hand-stitched heart-shaped pillows to a Vietnam War veteran. He told her he hadn’t received many tokens of appreciation since that …