Former editor, avid environmentalist killed in auto accident

A former Paddock Publications editor who documented much of Wheeling's early growth and the expansion of the former Palwaukee Airport during the 1960s, has died in Peoria.

Tom Edwards was a reporter and then editor for the Wheeling Herald from 1960 to 1966, when it was a weekly publication. But his interest in environmental issues eventually took him to the Peoria area, where he lived for 44 years.

Mr. Edwards died Friday in a rollover accident on the McClugage Bridge over the Illinois River, which he fought valiantly to protect from development. He was 79.

Colleagues at both the Daily Herald and the Peoria Star Journal, where he later worked, remembered Mr. Edwards as an outspoken conservationist, whose movement to protect green space and natural wildlife was ahead of his time.

"I think the times finally caught up with him," says Peoria Star Journal reporter Terry Bibo. "He was talking about restoring prairies and wetlands way back in the '70s, and everyone thought he was nuts. Now, they're not so sure."

Virginia Laughlin, a former editor of the Prospect Heights Herald, remembers training under Edwards back in 1961. She recalls that as he drove her around his beat, the first person he introduced her to was Audrey Christianson, one of the first commissioners of the newly formed Wheeling Park District.

"He was an environmentalist even then, and had a strong interest in the park district's land acquisition and development," Laughlin recalls.

He covered the village of Wheeling's donation of three adjoining lots, which eventually became the community's first park, Meadowbrook Park.

Mr. Edwards also reported about park officials obtaining a grant from the Federal Open Space Land Program to purchase 66 acres from G.D. Searle and Company in 1964, for the development of Heritage Park and the addition of a community recreation center, a lighted baseball field and an ice rink.

Laughlin also recalls that Mr. Edwards lived what he believed.

"When he lived in Prospect Heights, he didn't mow his lawn," Laughlin says. "He thought (mowing) was more environmentally damaging than driving a car."

During his years covering Wheeling, Mr. Edwards also documented the growth of the former Palwaukee Airport, as it expanded to include four runways, and grew to include a corporate hangar and 5,000-foot runway, under the ownership of Priester Aviation.

However, his lasting legacy, colleagues say, will be his outspoken activism in environmental issues that impacted the entire central Illinois region.

Mr. Edwards married once but was divorced, and he had no children. Funeral services will take place at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Universalist Unitarian Church of Peoria.