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Published in the News-Gazette on March 8, 2025
By Tom Kacich
After 50 years of news and memories, it's time to put down my pen
Well, that was fun.
The intention, back in August 1975, was to be here a few years and then move on. Aside from a few old guys who had been at the paper since the 1930s, the staff of The News-Gazette was young people who viewed this as a stop on the way to a big-city paper or an industry position.
I was hired to work the copy desk, which everyone but editor Harold "Shorty" Holmes knew was a mistake because I had never done it before and I only wanted to be a writer. But the copy desk veterans -like John Beck, who had been here about a year -taught me the basics and helped me avoid any 48-point mistakes.
One Saturday night, I actually worked the slot, the central position on the copy desk. All the regulars must have been sick, hungover or at weddings. I designed the front page with the banner headline "ILLINI BEAT CATS, PERRIN SCORES 4TDS." Good thing President Gerald Ford didn't die that day, because there was a hard rule that Illinois football games always got a banner headline.
Soon there was an opening on the reporting staff. The copy desk was saved from embarrassment and I got to cover the hard news at the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, Urbana-Champaign Sanitary District, Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District and anything else the senior reporters didn't want. That could include fires, shootings (the Goldenrod Tavern on First Street was notorious), speeches at Rotary clubs or the latest plans of the Champaign County Bicentennial Commission. Yes, there was such a thing, and The News-Gazette gave it gobs of coverage.
Because turnover in those long-ago days was so rapid and regular, and the reporting staff was so large, I soon advanced to covering Parkland College, the courts, the city of Urbana, county government, the state desk (small towns within 50 miles), editorial page editor, assistant city editor, city editor, features editor, politics and state government.
I met some lofty people (George H.W. Bush, Nancy Reagan, Ted Kennedy, John Anderson, Barack Obama), and covered a lot of federal, state and local politicians. Congressman Ed Madigan was probably my favorite because he was a wonderful storyteller and was game for anything. Once, he tended to my toddler son's bloody nose while I drove him around Champaign County in a station wagon as part of a GOP pre-election "caravan."
If journalism is the first rough draft of history, as Washington Post Publisher Phil Graham said many years ago, then I witnessed and recorded some notable events. I was in Paxton the night of the horrible Interstate 57 shootout in 1979 when five people were killed, including a state trooper and a Paxton police officer. I remember driving home from the old Paxton Community Hospital that night, hearing the words I had dictated an hour before to the copy desk reported on the CBS radio news. I went to Denver to cover the first effort to shut down the old Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul.
I was with Congressman Dan Crane of Danville minutes after he was censured by the U.S. House in 1983 for having sexual relations with a17-year-old page. It was a terribly humiliating moment, and he did not take it well. That same year, I was able to spend days in Chicago covering the remarkably interesting and historic mayoral race that early on featured Democrats Jane Byrne, Richard M. Daley and Harold Washington, and Republican Bernard Epton. Eventually, Washington defeated Epton and became the city's first Black mayor.
I was in the Illinois Senate chambers the night in 2011 when the upper chamber voted to ban the death penalty. I did not believe until that night that our legislators were capable of such thoughtful, solemn, respectful oratory. I was proud to be an Illinoisan. When Farm Aid came to town in 1985, I was city editor and directed our coverage, including a big special section the day after.
Later, I got to write a column. The late, great John Foreman, and after him, Jim Rossow gave me along leash. My favorite stories were those about the regular people and places of East Central Illinois: The two brothers who hand-dug graves at the Homer GAR Cemetery; the history of an unincorporated area near Tuscola called Chicken Bristle; the woman from Iroquois County who was elected to Congress in 1938 and was a constant and consistent foe of Franklin Roosevelt; the first same sex marriages in Champaign County; and the irreverent magazine published by a group of World War II veterans at the University of Illinois, including Hugh Hefner, Gene Shalit and Arnold Weber, who went on to become president of Northwestern University.
There was an interview with the man who directed the first televised Illini football game on WGN in 1948 (among the university's stipulations: no commercials for laxatives), another with the boy mayor of Urbana, Reginald Harmon, who in 1932 closed the city's businesses in order to prevent a run on local banks; and one with Bill Baker, a chainsaw artist who carved a remarkable likeness of baseball Hall of Famer "Old Hoss" Radbourn in a tree adjacent to the pitcher's gravesite in Bloomington.
I've worked at The News-Gazette for almost 50 years, in at least five buildings and through many management changes. I wrote a book on the history of the paper ("Hot Type," published in 2002). And I recently realized that I'm older than those old-timers who were at the paper when I started.
It's been a lot of work, a lot of late nights and early mornings. I hired good reporters and fired a couple bad ones. But journalism was almost everything I dreamed of when I was a little boy reading the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Daily News spread out on the living room floor.
Now it's time to give this precious space to the young journalists with their energy, enthusiasm, passion and dreams. They are practicing a noble profession (another term for underpaid) with the great responsibility to inform the public, shed light on government, institutions and culture, and call it as they see it. There are many reasons the task is much more difficult today than it was in 1975, not the least of which is misinformation on social media, including much from the government.
I was lucky. For me, well, that was fun.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 26, 2026 Media Contact Information: Cartwheel Emily Paisner (888) 500-2067 emily.paisner@cartwheelcare.org
$1 million grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois will help Cartwheel scale access to care in rural and underserved communities through 2028
CHICAGO — August 26, 2026 — Cartwheel Care, a telehealth mental health provider for K-12 schools, today announced plans to expand access to care for up to 100,000 students across Illinois, supported by a $1 million grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois (BCBSIL). The additional funding builds on an existing partnership between Cartwheel and BCBSIL, following a year of strong engagement and clinical outcomes. Cartwheel currently serves 40 Illinois school districts, and the grant will help expand services further into rural and underserved communities across the state through 2028. Mental health needs among Illinois students remain high. According to data from Lurie Children’s Hospital, approximately 50% of Illinois youth (ages 2–17) have experienced worsening mental health symptoms in recent years. At the same time, access to care has not kept pace: more than 80 of Illinois’ 102 counties have no practicing child psychiatrist, and the shortage is most acute in rural areas, where families often wait months for an appointment or travel significant distances for care. Cartwheel’s telehealth model is designed to remove the access barriers rural families face, like long waitlists and the need to travel to see a provider. By partnering with schools, Cartwheel provides licensed, Illinois-based clinicians with no waitlist, accepts all major insurance plans including Medicaid, and reaches kids and families where they already are, without requiring them to find or travel to an outside provider. “Every student experiences mental health challenges differently, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting them,” said Dr. Juliana Chen, chief medical officer at Cartwheel. “Our goal is to meet students and families where they are, with practical support that helps them build skills, strengthen relationships, and feel more confident navigating challenges at school and at home. BCBSIL’s support is what allows us to bring that care to more Illinois communities.” “Supporting the health and well-being of Illinois youth is critical to building stronger communities,” said Brian Snell, president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. “The results we’ve seen through our partnership with Cartwheel demonstrate the impact that timely, accessible mental health services can have for students and families. This investment will help bring those services to even more communities across our state.” To date, four Illinois districts have received Cartwheel’s services through this grant: Steger SD 194 in Cook County and Will County, Troy CCSD 30-C in Will County, Mattoon CUSD 2 in Coles County, and Wolf Branch SD #113 in St. Clair County. In the first year of the program, more than 200 students were referred for care and completed more than 1,000 telehealth sessions. Appointments were scheduled in the same week with no waitlist. Sixty-eight percent of students served were covered by Medicaid or uninsured. Overall, 73% of students showed meaningful improvement in anxiety and depression symptoms on standard clinical screeners (GAD-7/PHQ-9). Additional districts where Cartwheel services are launching this fall include Litchfield CUSD #12, Panhandle CUSD #2, Leyden High School District #212, and Regional Office of Education #40. With the support of this grant, Cartwheel expects to expand into another 30 to 50 school districts, bringing access to care to a total of 100,000 students across Illinois. “Before this partnership, getting a student connected to care could take months,” said Jeffrey Peterson, director of student services & records at Troy CCSD 30-C. “Now our counselors can refer a student, know they’ll be seen within days, and are seeing real improvements as a result.” Through the grant, Cartwheel provides individual and family therapy, parent guidance, psychiatric evaluation and medication management, and specialized care programs for challenges like school avoidance, social media use, and intense emotions and behavior challenges. As reported in Illinois Policy, in 2025 about 25% of Illinois students missed at least 10% of the school year and this was more severe among low-income students, with 35.1% in that group chronically absent. Cartwheel’s school avoidance program delivers evidence-based care designed specifically for students struggling with school avoidance. In partnership with Cartwheel, Peoria Public Schools saw a 62% reduction in absences per student, along with decreases in suspensions and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Illinois school districts that want to learn more about this opportunity for the upcoming school year should visit: www.cartwheel.org/illinois. About Cartwheel Cartwheel is the nation’s largest and most trusted telehealth provider for K-12 schools, students, and families. Cartwheel partners with 350 school districts across 15 states to deliver comprehensive mental health services to students, families, and school staff. Founded in 2022 by educators and clinicians, Cartwheel combines evidence-based clinical care with technology to ensure every child has access to high-quality mental health support. Cartwheel accepts all major insurance plans including Medicaid and provides care at no cost to uninsured families. For more information visit: www.cartwheel.org. About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is the largest health insurer in Illinois, serving nine million members and operating in all 102 Illinois counties. BCBSIL is a division of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Reserve Company and an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Learn more at bcbsil.com and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 24, 2026 Media Contact Information: Mather Institute Cindy Droog, president, Sabo PR (616) 717-8654 cindy@sabo-pr.com
Free online tool by Mather Institute supports local planning, partnership and investments
EVANSTON, Illinois – Chicago has a new tool to help understand where neighborhood conditions support social wellness among older adults – and where thoughtful investment and partnership may expand opportunities. Mather Institute launched a first-of-its-kind free Social Wellness Map, which scores the 77 community areas in Chicago on social wellness – a measure of feeling connected with others and with a community – for adults 55 and better. Previous research shows strong social ties are one of the most important predictors of a happy and long life, and that neighborhoods and communities shape how people interact, support one another and build shared identity. Mather Institute developed the map in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago. Designed as a planning and advocacy resource, the interactive map can help policymakers, community organizations, funders, planners and service providers explore local patterns, identify assets and consider where new investments may have the greatest benefit for older adults. “Social wellness is a crucial, yet often overlooked, part of healthy aging,” said Cate O’Brien, MPH, Ph.D., chief transformation officer at Mather Institute. “Because every community contains diverse histories, people and experiences, the map is intended to inform – not replace – local knowledge. The most useful next step is conversation. When organizations bring this data together with resident voices, they can better understand what is already working and what could be most beneficial to older adults and their communities.” The map is based on a new survey of more than 4,000 Chicago residents age 55 and better, combined with public data on community conditions, including walkability, economic factors and access to gathering places such as libraries, churches and community centers. Factors such as crime, lack of local businesses and poverty can hinder social wellness, but don’t tell the whole story. Users can view a side-by-side comparison of communities to explore how social wellness relates to health, happiness, income and other factors. Key findings include:
“Community leaders often have deep local knowledge, but need data to support the case for programs, funding and partnerships,” said Jennifer L. Smith, Ph.D., vice president of Mather Institute. “The Social Wellness Map offers another lens for understanding older adults’ experiences and for turning local insight into action.” High social wellness scores were not confined to one part of Chicago or to its wealthiest areas, suggesting that other factors such as neighborhood identity, belonging and longstanding social ties are also important to connection. Chatham emerged as a notable example, with a social wellness score of 8.14 out of 10, illustrating social wellness reflects aspects of community life beyond economic and safety indicators alone. Beverly received the highest community connectability score: 100 out of 100. Beverly is notable for its low crime rates, a strong family culture and several longstanding community gathering places. Jefferson Park stood out for having community conditions that support connection such as accessible transit, retail activity and established cultural gathering places. The map is free to use and does not require user registration. It can be explored at: https://www.matherinstitute.com/social-wellness-map/
About Mather and Mather Institute
Based in Evanston, Illinois, Mather is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1941 that is dedicated to a vision of changing the way society views aging. Mather creates Ways to Age Well℠ through programs, places and residences for today’s older adults. These include developing and operating communities that support older adults in pursuing wellness and fulfillment; sparking creativity and connections for older adults in Chicagoland and beyond; and through Mather Institute, conducting research and incubating innovation to help all live and age well.
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