Arlington Hts. celebrates 2011 Hearts of Gold recipients

Business Leader

Mark Rouse, co-owner of Runners High ‘n Tri in downtown Arlington Heights, just celebrated his 20th year in business, and last month saw his store named one of the top 50 running stores in the country by Competitor Magazine.

But a more personal honor comes Saturday, when Rouse accepts an award from Arlington Heights, whose residents voted him Business Leader of the Year.

“It’s a tremendous honor, but it’s really about the store,” says Rouse, who co-owns the running apparel shop, at 121 W. Campbell St. with Teresa Garrett.

Rouse is a 13-time Ironman finisher, who pledged to involve the store in local running events from the outset. High ’n Tri is a packet-pickup site for eight races each year — from those benefiting Salute Inc. and Frontier Days, to the Twin Lakes Triathlon in Palatine and the Long Grove Turkey Trot, to name a few.

“Since we participate in events, we wanted to help make local events more successful,” Rouse says. “We especially like to help charitable foundations.”

A staple at the store is the Tuesday night “fun run” for recreational runners of all abilities, as well as high school and college runners. Participants weave through neighborhoods on a 10K route.

Its longevity only reinforces Rouse’s philosophy that promoting running as a lifestyle can be fun and good for a healthy community.

City of Good Neighbors

Frank Appleby is a native of Tupelo, Miss., but after leaving the South for graduate school in Chicago and starting his banking career here, he’s now been in Illinois longer than the Deep South.

Friends in Arlington Heights say he never lost that folksy, down-home sense of hospitality and volunteerism. They voted Appleby, president of Peoples’ Bank, the winner of the “City of Good Neighbors” award, based on his efforts as a volunteer, business leader and adviser.

“It’s my first award,” Appleby says. “I was surprised, humbled and honored. Really, it came out of the blue.”

Community officials say his financial acumen has helped turn the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre into a flourishing theater that in turn helps downtown Arlington Heights thrive.

Through the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, Appleby was a director for the Downtown Business Association, and is currently a director on the Northwest Community Healthcare Foundation Board.

Under his leadership, Peoples’ Bank has made financial commitments to Mane Event, Autumn Harvest, Sounds of Summer, Frontier Days, Dollars for Scholars, National Family Night Out and Buzz.

The bank’s unique initiative has been a two-pronged veterans’ project: sponsoring the Traveling Bank, a reprise of an Arlington Heights World War II initiative, and a book of World War II accounts retold by area vets and written by St. Viator High School students.

Volunteer’s Volunteer

This summer will be Pat Peery’s 30th year as a volunteer with Frontier Days. What began in 1981 with dishing out ice cream and shucking corn has evolved into a role on the board of directors of the volunteer-run organization.

Over the years, Pat has coordinated food, volunteers, marketing, sponsors and has been festival co-chairman and president of the board, twice.

“(The festival) is made up of such an amazing group of people; it’s such an example of volunteers,” Peery says. “But then it’s just wonderful to see so many families come down and have fun, and not have to spend lots of money for entertainment. That’s why I do it.”

Peery cut her teeth in volunteering with various PTA roles while her children were young. More recently she has put in time with the Arlington Heights Parks Foundation.

Peery does all this while working full time as the administrative assistant to Hersey High School Principal Tina Cantrell. She is in her 22nd year working with Hersey administrators, and she is known as a go-to person there, as well.

“I know it sounds corny,” Peery says, “but I really do believe that if everyone gave back a little, this world would be a better place.”

Young Champion

Annalisa Baratta, 17, of Arlington Heights loves to dance, and she loves to volunteer — and through organizations like the Service Over Self Club at Hersey High School and the Arlington Dance Ensemble, she can do both.

“I’ve probably been dancing at nursing homes since I was 10,” says Baratta, a senior at Hersey. “I love it. We get to perform and interact with the residents.”

That’s just the start. What began at Thomas Middle School, when she organized a video drive for the pediatrics unit at Northwest Community Hospital, has evolved into serving others locally and overseas.

Two years ago, Baratta and her family volunteered together for two weeks in Costa Rica. She loved the experience so much that she traveled last summer to Ghana with the same organization, Cross-Cultural Solutions. There, she spent two weeks planting mango groves and she also helped to paint a mural at an orphanage.

Back home in Arlington Heights, Baratta has discovered a love of serving children with special needs. It grew out of accompanying a child with disabilities to the circus with Hersey’s Service Over Self Club.

She immersed herself in the special needs population last summer, when for one week she was a one-on-one counselor to a 19-year-old autistic girl with Down syndrome, at Camp SOAR in Algonquin.

Although her camper was nonverbal, Baratta found a way to communicate and even partner with her at the end of camp. This summer, she plans to return and stay for two weeks.

At this point, Baratta’s college plans are unclear, but this much she knows: She hopes to major in chemistry or biochemistry, and one day tackles diseases threatening Third World countries.

Kenneth M. Bonder Beautification

Javier’s Sabor Mexicano & Agave Bar drew keen interest from Arlington Heights residents as the longtime La Chicanita Restaurant began to transform into an authentic-looking adobe-styled eatery.

In fact, the new Javier’s, 8 W. Miner St., opened with twice as much seating last year, and a whole new look.

Credit its owner, Javier Villareal, with its transformation. Villareal used to work at the restaurant, and when he realized his dream of buying it, he began with the expansion into adjacent storefronts. Later, a new kitchen was added to keep up with increasing demand.

But Villareal still searched to combine the separate storefronts into a unified restaurant.

“It wasn’t speaking Mexican on the outside,” he says.

Its current stylized exterior was the result of close collaboration between Villareal, his architect, Jim Tinaglia, and members of the Arlington Heights plan commission and design committee.

“Javier had a preliminary concept in mind,” Tinaglia says. “He knew he wanted it to look like an authentic restaurant in Mexico.”

It took much research into Southwestern architecture before they adopted a mission style, with such features as the low-pitched, clay tile roofline, the bell tower replica, shutters and colorful window boxes.

They added a courtyard to make more outdoor seating, and hope to enhance the corner even more with additional outdoor tables.

The result has enhanced the corner and created potential for more entertainment venues north of the railroad tracks. What’s more, it turned a popular Arlington Heights restaurant into an even more appealing destination.

Young at Heart

Javier Elias built a career in international sales, cultivating clients in Latin and Central America, as well as in the Middle East. But he is finding even more rewards working with a different clientele, right in his own back yard.

Elias is a native of Mexico, who came to this country with his family and later earned his citizenship after serving with the Army occupation forces after World War II.

The G.I. Bill enabled him to get an education and ultimately start a career, but when he retired in 1993, he turned to volunteering with the Arlington Heights Memorial Library.

He was assigned to the library’s Bookmobile program at Arlington Park Racetrack to translate for Hispanic workers. Two years later, Elias was asked to take his connections one step further, and tutor Hispanic immigrants in learning English as a Second Language.

“I am an immigrant myself and I went through many of the same things,” Elias says. “I know that trying to negotiate life without knowing the language can be very difficult.”

Elias and his wife, Joan, have lived more than 40 years in Arlington Heights, where they raised their six children. Their children are grown now, but the couple still live in the same house and enjoy the Arlington Heights community, including its library.

“It has been eight years since I started tutoring,” Elias says. “I get great satisfaction from seeing these people who know no English, eventually being able to communicate and end up going further in life. I really think it’s empowering.”

Educator

Genie Beck believes she has one of the best jobs in the world: cracking the code of reading for children. Beck is in her 13th year working as a literacy teacher at Windsor Elementary School and 15th overall as a teacher in Arlington Heights Elementary District 25.

Over the years, she has been a substitute teacher and literary assistant, and now is one of two literary teachers on staff.

Her student load varies from year to year, but typically they include second language learners as well as those students needing an extra boost. Every half-hour she meets with students — from those who are pulled out for extra reading support to small group instruction designed to accompany their core subjects.

Beck works with them on phonics, vocabulary and reading comprehension in an effort to advance their skills.

“We try to meet the children where they are on the reading continuum and move them forward,” Beck says. “It takes practice and repetition, but once it clicks, it’s like sliding along on smooth ice.”

Her co-workers and administrators say she makes lifelong connections with her students and their parents. Through literacy interventions, parent information nights, a summer reading camp and just celebrating her students, Beck opens up a whole new world for her young readers.

Mentor

Andy Anderson is handy and mechanical, thanks to his job in the furnace and air conditioning industry. And students on South Middle School’s Science Olympiad team are the lucky recipients of his know-how.

For the last 16 years, Anderson has helped Head Coach Katie Kaufman, serving as the mechanical coach. Consequently, Anderson has helped students build complicated mousetrap contraptions, catapults and even battery-operated robots.

“These are the events that are complicated to build and used to take up lots of the coach’s time,” Anderson says. “I’m happy to help.”

More than help, he coaches his seventh- and eighth-grade team members and enjoys watching the light bulbs go off when they succeed.

Anderson takes great pride in South’s award-winning reputation, having advanced to nationals 24 out of the last 25 years, by finishing first or second in the state. However, he takes even greater pride in a 10-year record held by his seventh- and eighth-grade girls who finished in the top 10 at nationals in the so-called “Mission Possible” event.

“They’ve built a dynasty, that’s how hard it is to medal at nationals,” Anderson says. “They make me feel like I’m Phil Jackson coaching the Bulls.”

Pam Stocking

Several times a week, school buses from across the Northwest suburbs pull up to the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre. They come for a series of unique workshops taught by Laura Wesslund, outreach program coordinator at Metropolis and its lead teaching artist.

Students enroll in creative drama or rhythmic movement classes, which are offered in partnership with Northwest Special Recreation Association and are geared to students with a variety of special needs.

Wesslund brings her theater background to both, encouraging students to express themselves through elements of dance or by using rhythmic instruments, or by exploring characters and storytelling through props and costumes in the creative drama class.

“Their faces seem to light up,” Wesslund says. “I love opening students’ eyes up to something new — and a new approach to learning.”

Metropolis officials credit Wesslund with driving the success of the workshops. The one-hour classes now have evolved into several week sessions, held after school for interested students.

“Laura is at the heart of these workshops,” says Brad Dunne, Metropolis spokesman. “Her caring personality and unique skills in rhythm and dance engage the students and motivate them to do their best.”

Best Neighbor

When Larry and Diana Koss retired from their high-powered jobs with First National Bank of Chicago and AT&T respectively, they could have become snowbirds and fled south for a more leisurely lifestyle.

Not these two active seniors.

“I’ve had enough of traveling,” says Larry Koss, who used to be an international auditor for the bank.

Instead, the couple put their collective energies back into the community of Arlington Heights. For years, they have been “red shirt” volunteers at Frontier Days, most recently organizing the grand prize raffle.

But they also deliver Meals on Wheels every week, donate food once a month to the Wheeling Township Food Pantry, and they became certified through the Citizen Police Academy offered by the village.

For nearly 30 years, the couple lived in the Ivy Hill subdivision, where Diana organized the neighborhood garage sale. Now, they live at the Fountains of Arlington, where Diana serves on the board of their condominium complex.

Residents there say the couple pitches in to provide rides to doctor appointments and the pharmacy, provide meals when others are ill, and pick up extra groceries while they’re shopping.

“If they need something, and we’re out, why not?” Diana Koss says. “We don’t think it’s unusual. It’s just being neighborly.”