2010: A year of triumphs, heroism, corruption
A decade into our new millennium, suburbanites discovered that some of the year's biggest stories were timeless tales of political upheavals, an exhilarating sports triumph, the loss of an inspiring legend and the ultimate sacrifice of one of our own.
Politics dominated 2010 with our impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich professing his innocence on “The Celebrity Apprentice,” in a pistachio commercial, before numerous talk show hosts and everywhere except in his federal corruption trial, where he exercised his right not to take the witness stand. Meanwhile, embattled Cook County President Todd Stroger barely put up a fight as voters overwhelmingly ran him out of office.
Tea party upstart Joe Walsh said “so what” to critics who said he didn't have a chance, staging an upset victory over incumbent Congresswoman Melissa Bean as the GOP took back the House. President Obama's old Senate seat fell to the Republicans as Mark Kirk beat out Democrat Alexi Giannoulias. Gov. Pat Quinn scored perhaps the biggest victory for Democrats. As proof that political battles aren't confined to our two main parties, Buffalo Grove voters made history by removing trustee Lisa Stone from her elected office.
The year saw the Chicago Blackhawks celebrate their first Stanley Cup championship since 1961. But the Cubs will enter their 103rd season since their last World Series championship without one of their biggest fans, as legendary player, announcer and “every fan” Ron Santo died. For his unrelenting optimism and inspiring work on behalf of people with diabetes, Santo was a hero to many. The entire nation recognized our hero Rob Miller, of Wheaton, who was awarded the Medal of Honor after he gave his life courageously on the battlefield in Afghanistan.
Joy, sadness, the good, the bad and the ugly all made their presence felt in 2010. For a closer look at some of the year's biggest stories, we offer these selections:
A hero is honored
Remembered as a “true role model,” Wheaton native Rob Miller was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic action during a firefight in Afghanistan.
Miller was an Army staff sergeant who was killed at the age of 24 on Jan. 25, 2008 while fighting Taliban forces near a border town in northeast Afghanistan. In doing so, he saved his team of seven soldiers and 15 Afghan troops.
Wheaton Mayor Michael Gresk said, “Our Sgt. Miller is a valiant, courageous hero in the truest, most classic sense.”
Miller's family accepted the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military honor, in his honor at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., in October.
Stanley Cup!!!!
It took an overtime period in the sixth game, but the Chicago Blackhawks secured the team's first Stanley Cup Finals victory in 49 years.
Led by youngsters Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp, the Blackhawks outdueled the Philadelphia Flyers in the finals. Kane's goal 4 minutes into overtime in the sixth gave Chicago the Cup on June 9.
A victory parade was held two days later in downtown Chicago where an estimated 2 million fans turned out to salute the team and listen to repeated placings of the team's unofficial theme song, “Chelsea Dagger.”
In the months following, some of the heroes of the championship run were traded or shipped off to alleviate salary pressures. Popular goalie Antti Niemi and playoff star Dustin Byfuglien were among those handed walking papers.
A third of the way through the 2011 season, the team is struggling to stay above the .500 mark.
Good bye, old friend
It was the year that Cubs fans said good bye to Ron Santo. a legend who packed three careers into 70 years of life.
The former Cubs third baseman turned businessman turned sports broadcaster died Dec. 2 from complications of bladder cancer.
As a baseball player, he hit 342 home runs during a 15-year career, 14 of them with the Cubs. After playing the 1974 season with the White Sox, he retired from baseball and got into work with an oil company and running restaurants.
His biggest Cubs fame came from his last career, as a color analyst on radio broadcasts. His on-air work was branded by a stream of consciousness with which he celebrated the team's successes and lamented the team's lows.
Bladder cancer was the latest of his many physical ailments. He was diagnosed with it in 2003. But for his entire adult life, Santo suffered from diabetes, forcing him to have both legs amputated below the knee. He also had heart bypass surgery in 1999.
Haven't heard the last of...
For Rod Blagojevich, the motto for 2010 was, “It only takes one.”
It only took one juror to prevent him from being found guilty on 23 counts of corruption during his term as Illinois governor. Yet it only took a guilty verdict on one count — lying to federal agents — to make him a felon.
Literally and metaphorically, the Blagojevich trial opened with a bang and ended with a whimper. Lead defense attorney Sam Adam Jr., in his opening statement, told jurors they absolutely would hear Blagojevich maintain his innocence on the witness stand. Yet, when push came to shove, Blagojevich's fundraiser brother, Robert, was grilled by prosecutors, and the former governor's lawyers responded by not mounting a defense, stating they believed the government hadn't proved its case.
The majority of the jury disagreed and pursued an across-the-board conviction, but one female juror — a former state employee — declined to convict the Blagojeviches, except on the lone felony charge against Rod. A mistrial was declared on the remaining counts.
Prosecutors plan to retry the ex-governor, with the trial date now set for April. Yet, in a bid to simplify the case, they declined to pursue charges against Robert Blagojevich. For prosecutors, too, it seemed, one will be enough.
Stone thrown from office
In Buffalo Grove, voters made history by removing a trustee from office after she'd served 18 months of a four-year term.
Lisa Stone was recalled from the office she was elected to in 2009, after a tenure marked by her acrimonious relationship with other trustees and some village administrators starting almost on day one.
Stone said she was disappointed, but she defended her actions. “I had the courage to stand up for what is right and face the consequences, but the citizens have spoken and I accept their decision.”
The election night trouble did not stop with Stone. Mayor Elliott Hartstein, whose relationship with Stone was especially difficult, got into his own hot water by arriving at a postelection gathering of recall supporters wearing a dark wig and doing an act to mimic Stone _ all captured on video. He later apologized.
Walsh goes to Congress
He didn't have money, or a record to run on. And his name was tied to a spring foreclosure and failure to pay income taxes in the 1980s and 1990s. Pollsters largely ignored him.
Yet, all the same, Joe Walsh — a tea partyer from McHenry — knocked three-term incumbent Melissa Bean from her post as an 8th District congresswoman, taking a seat that had been considered absolutely safe by 291 votes.
Walsh's victory has been largely credited to the support of a collection of tea party, Constitution-focused, gun rights and abortion opponent groups. It also was due, arguably, to the fact that Democrats failed to see the seat as vulnerable and that Bean conducted a mostly low-profile campaign.
Walsh's volunteers collectively totaled more than a thousand sharing the work of going door-to-door and attending rallies, parades and events. A documentary on how it all came together is in the works.
New U.S. senator
The U.S. Senate's newest member, Republican Mark Kirk, narrowly won the seat held by the Democrats and Barack Obama before he became president, vowing to continue “thoughtful independent leadership” during his six years and six weeks in office.
The Highland Park Republican replaced Democratic Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed by scandal-tarred former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill the remainder of Obama's Senate term.
Kirk, a 21-year naval reservist, overcame allegations of an exaggerated military record to win 48 percent of the vote, to Democrat Alexi Giannoulias' 46 percent, in an expensive and highly negative campaign.
Kirk has pledged to work with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to complete the O'Hare International Airport Modernization Project, ban sewage dumping in the Great Lakes and expand high-speed rail across Illinois. Kirk said he is ready to “repeal and reform” the health care legislation that Obama spent so much political capital getting passed.
So long Todd
Chicago may or may not be ready for reform, but in 2010 Cook County proved it was.
Voters elected Toni Preckwinkle, a Chicago Hyde Park alderman and a leader of the city council's progressive caucus, to be president of the county board.
Out was Todd Stroger, a second-generation Chicago politician who followed his father into the president's office, only to be tied to an agenda of corruption, nepotism and, most damaging of all, an unpopular 1-percentage-point increase in the county sales tax.
Stroger was voted out in the Democratic primary in February, running last in a four-person race. Preckwinkle was elected in the general election in November.
In between, however, a top Stroger aide, Deputy Chief of Staff Carla Oglesby, his former campaign spokeswoman, was arrested on corruption charges for approving a series of so-called 24-9 contracts just under the $25,000 mark requiring board approval. A Cook County State's Attorney investigation is ongoing.
Soon after the primary, Stroger resigned the Democratic committeeman post in Chicago's 8th Ward, also once held by his father, and he later announced his intention to go into consulting or the insurance business — through with politics for at least the time being.