Naperville's Penick receiving Woman of the Year award from AAUW
Positively Naperville founder Stephanie Penick is spending the days before receiving a local club's Woman of the Year award researching dinosaurs, cockroaches and the adverse effects of reading too much digital content.
She's being honored May 16 by the Naperville branch of the American Association of University Women, which is recognizing her for promoting good news, community spirit and volunteerism through the monthly paper she has published since 2001.
Penick also writes a monthly column about Naperville for the Daily Herald.
"She felt it was so important to involve local people and local businesses and encourage the spirit of volunteerism in the community," AAUW member Lee Eastman said. "She really started this newspaper (Positively Naperville) totally on her own and has driven it to be part of the community."
Penick, 67, said the printed publication is a major element of what she does with Positively Naperville, despite publishing new content online as a "digital daily." She considers herself and her printed paper a "cockroach," so to speak, not a dinosaur, because roaches have survived throughout eternity while dinos went extinct.
Now, she's finding studies that link better comprehension and retention of information to reading the printed word in physical form instead of as images on a screen. In accepting the AAUW Woman of the Year award, the 23-year resident of Naperville said she intends to highlight the significance of print even in this digital age.
"I feel very honored because it's going to give the print media a voice," Penick said. "I want to use it as a venue to say, 'Hey, folks, you need to be reading the newspaper, you need to be reading print.'"
Penick started Positively Naperville in September 2001, just days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She then had to convince people that her publication's second edition, featuring photos of the American flags that popped up all over the city, wasn't in response to the tragedy but an effort to promote good things going on in town.
"I dug my heels in and said I have to figure out a way to make this work because the world can't get me down," Penick said.
The AAUW award also is recognizing Penick for her volunteer involvement with organizations such as the Riverwalk Commission, Naper Settlement and Indie Bound Naperville. She previously was honored in 2013 as Naperville's Fair Lady from Fair Lady Productions for her commitment to advancing the arts.
Recent recipients of the AAUW Woman of the Year award include IdaLynn Wenhold, executive director of the nonprofit KidsMatter, who won in 2014, and Becky Anderson, owner of Anderson's Bookshop, who received the award in 2013.