Illinois State Society of Washington, DC

Illinois Hall of Fame: Georgie Anne Geyer

By Mark Rhoads

Georgie Anne Geyer is one of America's foremost columnists on foreign affairs.  Now with the Universal Press Syndicate, "Gigi" or "Gee Gee" Geyer began her journalistic career on the South Side of Chicago.  Gigi was born in Chicago on April 2, 1935. She was salutatorian of her class at Calument High School in 1952 and graduated from the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism in 1956 where she was a member of the Chi Omega sorority.  After Northwestern, Gigi attended the University of Vienna on a Fullbright Scholarship. Gigi's first job as a reporter was for The Southtown Economist.  From 1959 to 1974 Gigi was a reporter for The Chicago Daily News where she started out on society news but progressed to general news assignments and finally was stationed overseas as a foreign correspondent.  Gigi left The Chicago Daily News in 1974 to become an independent nationally syndicated columnist.

Illinois Hall of Fame: John Gunther

By Mark Rhoads

John Gunther was the best selling author of 28 books including Inside Europe in 1936 and many "Inside" geo-political travel books.  John was born on the North Side of Chicago on Aug. 30, 1901. He attended Lake View High School at 4015 N. Ashland Avenue and wrote for the student magazine.  At age 16, he wrote an article on the Russian Revolution and would revisit the topic of Russia many times in his life culminating with his 1958 book Inside Russia Today. As an English major at the University of Chicago, he was 20 years old when he started writing book reviews for the campus newspaper, the Daily Maroon. John graduated from the University of Chicago in 1922 and was awarded a Phi Beta Kappa key.

In late 1922, after he bicycled across Europe, John started to work as a cub reporter for The Chicago Daily News earning a salary of $15 per week. Gunther went to Wyoming in 1924 to write about the great oil deposit scandal of the Harding Administration called Teapot Dome. He wrote: "Teapot Dome has no resemblance whatever to a teapot [or] to a dome."  His bad jokes notwithstanding, in fact his series was ranked among the best news stories of 1924.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Lee Phillip

By Mark Rhoads

For decades tens of thousands of fans thought of Lee Phillip as one of the nicest TV personalities in Chicago.  The reputation was well justified.  Emmy Award-winning TV producer and host Lee Phillip studied microbiology at Northwestern University. Her family owned Phillip's Florists in La Grange Park and other western suburbs in the 1950s.  One day Lee went with her brother to the Channel 2 studio to help him with a show on flower presentation. She took over that show and eventually hosted her own daytime variety talk show on WBBM-TV that won 16 Chicago Emmy Awards.  Lee married TV writer and producer William J. Bell in 1954 and the marriage lasted until his death in 2005. With her husband she was co-creator of the national daytime soap opera called The Young and the Restless.  Lee won a national daytime Emmy in 1975 for that show.

Lee and William also co-created another soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. She served as co-executive producer of that show during the 1980s. In 1977, Lee was the first woman to receive the Governor's Award from the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  Lee is the mother of William J. Bell, Jr, Lauralee Bell, and Bradley Bell who have all acted in soap operas. She also has six grandchildren.  Part of Lee's legacy to Chicago includes her generous donation of $500,000 in 2006 to Bruce DuMont's new Museum of Broadcast Communications Building located at State and Kinzie Streets on the North Side of Chicago.

By Mark Rhoads

For decades tens of thousands of fans thought of Lee Phillip as one of the nicest TV personalities in Chicago.  The reputation was well justified.  Emmy Award-winning TV producer and host Lee Phillip studied microbiology at Northwestern University. Her family owned Phillip's Florists in La Grange Park and other western suburbs in the 1950s.  One day Lee went with her brother to the Channel 2 studio to help him with a show on flower presentation. She took over that show and eventually hosted her own daytime variety talk show on WBBM-TV that won 16 Chicago Emmy Awards.  Lee married TV writer and producer William J. Bell in 1954 and the marriage lasted until his death in 2005. With her husband she was co-creator of the national daytime soap opera called The Young and the Restless.  Lee won a national daytime Emmy in 1975 for that show.

Lee and William also co-created another soap opera, The Bold and the Beautiful. She served as co-executive producer of that show during the 1980s. In 1977, Lee was the first woman to receive the Governor's Award from the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  Lee is the mother of William J. Bell, Jr, Lauralee Bell, and Bradley Bell who have all acted in soap operas. She also has six grandchildren.  Part of Lee's legacy to Chicago includes her generous donation of $500,000 in 2006 to Bruce DuMont's new Museum of Broadcast Communications Building located at State and Kinzie Streets on the North Side of Chicago.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Irv Kupcinet

By Mark Rhoads

Irv Kupcinet was a reporter and celebrity columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for an incredible 68 years from 1935 to 2003. He was born on July 31, 1912 near 16th and Kedzie in what was then the mostly Jewish North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. He was the youngest of four children of Russian immigrants, Ogla and Max Kupcinet. Max was a bakery truck driver and as a boy Irv helped his father make deliveries with a horse and wagon.

Kup attended the old Carter Harrison High School at 24th and Marshall Blvd. where he was editor of the school newspaper and president of the senior class. The school is now elementary grades only and was re-named in 1981 for Maria Saucedo, a teacher who was killed in a fire.

Kup won a football scholarship to Northwestern University in 1930 but later transferred to where football opportunities for him would be better at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks. He graduated in 1934.

By Mark Rhoads

Irv Kupcinet was a reporter and celebrity columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for an incredible 68 years from 1935 to 2003. He was born on July 31, 1912 near 16th and Kedzie in what was then the mostly Jewish North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago. He was the youngest of four children of Russian immigrants, Ogla and Max Kupcinet. Max was a bakery truck driver and as a boy Irv helped his father make deliveries with a horse and wagon.

Kup attended the old Carter Harrison High School at 24th and Marshall Blvd. where he was editor of the school newspaper and president of the senior class. The school is now elementary grades only and was re-named in 1981 for Maria Saucedo, a teacher who was killed in a fire.

Kup won a football scholarship to Northwestern University in 1930 but later transferred to where football opportunities for him would be better at the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks. He graduated in 1934.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Eppie Friedman Lederer

By Mark Rhoads

In the picture at right by Frank Johnson from The Washington Post, the two most famous sisters in journalism arrived in 1997 for the National Journalism Foundation Awards Dinner. At left wearing black is Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips (also known as advice columnist Abigail Van Buren). At right is her identical twin sister Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer (better known as Ann Landers).  Even in competition with her sister, Eppie as Ann Landers made Chicago the personal advice capital of the world in the second half of the 20th Century.

The twins were born on July 4, 1918 in Sioux City, Iowa to Jewish immigrants. Their father Abraham Lederer was from Vladivostock, Russia.  He started life in America selling chickens from a wagon and wound up owning a chain of movie theaters in three states. 

By Mark Rhoads

In the picture at right by Frank Johnson from The Washington Post, the two most famous sisters in journalism arrived in 1997 for the National Journalism Foundation Awards Dinner. At left wearing black is Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips (also known as advice columnist Abigail Van Buren). At right is her identical twin sister Esther "Eppie" Pauline Friedman Lederer (better known as Ann Landers).  Even in competition with her sister, Eppie as Ann Landers made Chicago the personal advice capital of the world in the second half of the 20th Century.

The twins were born on July 4, 1918 in Sioux City, Iowa to Jewish immigrants. Their father Abraham Lederer was from Vladivostock, Russia.  He started life in America selling chickens from a wagon and wound up owning a chain of movie theaters in three states. 

Illinois Hall of Fame: Siskel & Ebert

By Mark Rhoads

Roger Ebert, at left, and Gene Siskel, at right, are shown in this Chicago Tribune file photo from Feb. 1, 1995 when they were honored at a ceremony at the corner of Erie Street and McClurg Court. On that day the city put up a Chicago street sign that says "Honorary Siskel and Ebert Way." For 23 seasons these two native Illinoisans hosted a new genre of journalistic film criticism on a show that at one time reached 95 percent of all homes with TV sets in America. They helped to invent the new format for Chicago Public Television WTTW in 1975 and the program went national on PBS in 1978. It later went into commercial syndication under a different name. Both writers are profiled in brief below.

By Mark Rhoads

Roger Ebert, at left, and Gene Siskel, at right, are shown in this Chicago Tribune file photo from Feb. 1, 1995 when they were honored at a ceremony at the corner of Erie Street and McClurg Court. On that day the city put up a Chicago street sign that says "Honorary Siskel and Ebert Way." For 23 seasons these two native Illinoisans hosted a new genre of journalistic film criticism on a show that at one time reached 95 percent of all homes with TV sets in America. They helped to invent the new format for Chicago Public Television WTTW in 1975 and the program went national on PBS in 1978. It later went into commercial syndication under a different name. Both writers are profiled in brief below.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Bob Woodward

By Mark Rhoads

Washington Post investigative reporter and author Bob Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois on March 26, 1943.  He was raised in Wheaton and graduated in 1961 from what was then called the Wheaton Community High School. His mother was Jane Woodward and his father was Judge Alfred E. Woodward, a circuit court judge of the 19th Circuit in Du Page County. Judge Woodward was first elected as a Republican. Other members of Bob's family including his uncle practiced law in Wheaton and the family was considered prominent in Wheaton long before Bob went to college.

Classmate Craig Simpson, who was campaign manager for Bob's losing campaign for student council president in high school, told one biographer, Adrian Havill, that "He was always well-intended but remote...In many ways, he was like Nixon."

By Mark Rhoads

Washington Post investigative reporter and author Bob Woodward was born in Geneva, Illinois on March 26, 1943.  He was raised in Wheaton and graduated in 1961 from what was then called the Wheaton Community High School. His mother was Jane Woodward and his father was Judge Alfred E. Woodward, a circuit court judge of the 19th Circuit in Du Page County. Judge Woodward was first elected as a Republican. Other members of Bob's family including his uncle practiced law in Wheaton and the family was considered prominent in Wheaton long before Bob went to college.

Classmate Craig Simpson, who was campaign manager for Bob's losing campaign for student council president in high school, told one biographer, Adrian Havill, that "He was always well-intended but remote...In many ways, he was like Nixon."

Illinois Hall of Fame: John Chancellor

By Mark Rhoads

John Chancellor was an award-winning reporter and evening news anchor for NBC-TV.  John was born in Chicago on July 14, 1927. His mother was from County Mayo in Ireland. His father died when John was young and he and his mother lived at some of the best addresses in downtown Chicago. This was not because the family had money but because his mother worked for various fashionable hotels in management including the Stevens Hotel (later Conrad Hilton Hotel) at 720 South Michigan Avenue. Living quarters at the hotel was part of the compensation package

Early in World War II during his high school years, John attended DePaul Academy for three years and the University of Chicago Hyde Park Day School for one semester. He worked at a variety of odd jobs including a stint at the Chicago Daily Tribune as a copy boy.  He also worked at Kroch and Brentano's Book Store on South Wabash and on a tour boat on the Illinois River. He got the equivalent of a high school diploma from the US Army in 1944 and served until 1946. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1949 and went to work as a reporter for The Chicago Sun-Times, a new newspaper that was the result of a merger of The Chicago Sun and the The Chicago Times in 1946. The paper was then owned by Marshall Field, III.  He covered the Little Rock, Arkansas school desegregation story for The Chicago Sun-Times in 1957. Chancellor was married twice in the 1950s. The first marriage was short and the second marriage to Barbara Upshaw in 1958 lasted many years until his death.

In the late 1950s John worked as a reporter and then news anchor for WBKB-TV (later WLS-TV) and then for NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV.  He had various appointments with NBC News as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and Berlin. He reported for the short version of the Huntley-Brinkley Report and served for one year in 1961 as host for The Today Show on NBC. Chancellor reported from Berlin on President Kennedy's visit to that city in June 1963 and then reported on European reaction to the assassination of President Kennedy in November of that year.

Years later NBC based another veteran reporter from Chicago in Berlin, Garrick Utley, who was the son of Channel 5 reporters Clifton Utley and Frayn Utley. John was one of a large number of Chicago news veterans who went on to work at the network level including Utley, John Palmer, Hal Bruno, John McWethy, Frank Reynolds, Bill Kurtis, and many others.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Orion Samuelson

By Mark Rhoads

If you are in any way connected with the farming business in the USA, the voice of Orion Samuelson has been an important part of your day for as long as you have been farming. For more than forty-five years so far, Orion has been the radio voice of agriculture in America.

He has been broadcasting since the 1950s on Wisconsin radio stations and started at WGN radio as director of farm news in 1960. In 2006 he is heard on a syndicate of 260 American radio stations that carry his National Farm Report program. He also has a TV audience of more than thirty million viewers on 190 cable, satellite, and broadcast TV stations for different shows on his own and with his colleague Max Armstrong.

In his lecture called "From Reaper to Satellite," Orion, a resident of Northbrook, Illinois, shares his entusiasm for farmers and their vital work with millions each week. He exudes good will for the two percent of Americans who raise food from the ground and take care of the livestock that feeds three hundred million Americans and millions more overseas. He both reports on the market news of agribusiness and also is an advocate for farmers who understands their professional challenges.

His awards are almost countless but among some of the most significant are the 4-H Hall of Fame, the 1998 Distringuished Service Award of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the 2001 Lincoln Medal--the highest award from the State of Illinois, and his 2003 induction into the Radio Hall of Fame.

By Mark Rhoads

If you are in any way connected with the farming business in the USA, the voice of Orion Samuelson has been an important part of your day for as long as you have been farming. For more than forty-five years so far, Orion has been the radio voice of agriculture in America.

He has been broadcasting since the 1950s on Wisconsin radio stations and started at WGN radio as director of farm news in 1960. In 2006 he is heard on a syndicate of 260 American radio stations that carry his National Farm Report program. He also has a TV audience of more than thirty million viewers on 190 cable, satellite, and broadcast TV stations for different shows on his own and with his colleague Max Armstrong.

In his lecture called "From Reaper to Satellite," Orion, a resident of Northbrook, Illinois, shares his entusiasm for farmers and their vital work with millions each week. He exudes good will for the two percent of Americans who raise food from the ground and take care of the livestock that feeds three hundred million Americans and millions more overseas. He both reports on the market news of agribusiness and also is an advocate for farmers who understands their professional challenges.

His awards are almost countless but among some of the most significant are the 4-H Hall of Fame, the 1998 Distringuished Service Award of the American Farm Bureau Federation, the 2001 Lincoln Medal--the highest award from the State of Illinois, and his 2003 induction into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Illinois Hall of Fame: Ruth Hanna McCormick

By Mark Rhoads

Ruth Hanna McCormick was a suffragist and advocate for the rights of women and children. She actively campaigned for the vote for women from 1913 until the amendment was ratifed by the states in 1920. In 1913, Illinois women won the right to vote in municipal elections and for presidential electors and on bond issues. But oddly enough they did not win the right to vote for Congress, Governor, other statewide offices, or members of the General Assembly, until the 19th Amendment was ratified by three-quarters of the states in 1920. Illinois was one of the first three states to ratify the national vote for women amendment on June 10, 1919 and tied with the legisaltures of Michigan and Wisconsin on that day.

Ruth was not the the first woman to serve in Congress from Illinois. Winifred Mason-Huck was elected in a special 1923 election to succeed her father Rep. William Mason but Winifred only served a few months and did not win renomination in 1924. Ruth not only served a full term in the House but she was also the first woman of either party to win a statewide election in Illinois when she became an at-large Member of Congress as a Republican in 1928. She campaigned in 99 of the 102 Illinois counties.  There have been women representatives in Congress from Illinois in every decade since the 1920s.

The women pioneers from Illinois in the legislature included Lottie Holman O'Neill of Downers Grove who was first elected to the House in 1922. Florence Fifer Bohrer of Bloomington was the daughter of Gov. Joe Fifer and was the first woman elected to the state senate in 1924. But Lottie served longer than any other woman in a state legislature, 1923 to 1951 in the House with two years off and 1951 to 1963 in the Senate for a total of 38 years in legislative service. Lottie, Florence, Winifred, and Ruth were all Republicans.

Ruth Hanna McCormick came from two politically-powerful families and was owner and publisher of the Rockford Register-Republic and the Rockford Morning Star starting in 1930 during a time when she lived in Byron, Illinois in Ogle County.

By Mark Rhoads

Ruth Hanna McCormick was a suffragist and advocate for the rights of women and children. She actively campaigned for the vote for women from 1913 until the amendment was ratifed by the states in 1920. In 1913, Illinois women won the right to vote in municipal elections and for presidential electors and on bond issues. But oddly enough they did not win the right to vote for Congress, Governor, other statewide offices, or members of the General Assembly, until the 19th Amendment was ratified by three-quarters of the states in 1920. Illinois was one of the first three states to ratify the national vote for women amendment on June 10, 1919 and tied with the legisaltures of Michigan and Wisconsin on that day.

Ruth was not the the first woman to serve in Congress from Illinois. Winifred Mason-Huck was elected in a special 1923 election to succeed her father Rep. William Mason but Winifred only served a few months and did not win renomination in 1924. Ruth not only served a full term in the House but she was also the first woman of either party to win a statewide election in Illinois when she became an at-large Member of Congress as a Republican in 1928. She campaigned in 99 of the 102 Illinois counties.  There have been women representatives in Congress from Illinois in every decade since the 1920s.

The women pioneers from Illinois in the legislature included Lottie Holman O'Neill of Downers Grove who was first elected to the House in 1922. Florence Fifer Bohrer of Bloomington was the daughter of Gov. Joe Fifer and was the first woman elected to the state senate in 1924. But Lottie served longer than any other woman in a state legislature, 1923 to 1951 in the House with two years off and 1951 to 1963 in the Senate for a total of 38 years in legislative service. Lottie, Florence, Winifred, and Ruth were all Republicans.

Ruth Hanna McCormick came from two politically-powerful families and was owner and publisher of the Rockford Register-Republic and the Rockford Morning Star starting in 1930 during a time when she lived in Byron, Illinois in Ogle County.