Iroquois School P.E. program earns group's blue ribbon

Iroquois Community School, 1836 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, received Blue Ribbon status from the Illinois Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. The District 62 board of education recognized the work of physical education teachers Anne Beranek and William Snyder in achieving the award at its July meeting. The Blue Ribbon is awarded to an elite group of schools based on specific criteria and evaluation of curriculum, instruction, medical safety, facilities, equipment, financing and administration. Beranek and Snyder will receive the award during the IAHPERD state conference in November.

• JOURNEYS | The Road Home, Palatine, hired Suzanne Ploger to serve as the social service agency's new director of development. Ploger comes to JOURNEYS with 17 years of fundraising and development experience, having previously been employed at The Salvation Army Metropolitan Division, Chicago, as director of Specialized Giving. She has also worked as development manager for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America-Illinois Chapter, Des Plaines, and held similar positions at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Chicago Academy of Sciences-Notebaert Nature Museum. She holds a master of arts in history/archival, museum and editing studies from Duquesne University and a bachelor of arts in history/art history from DePaul University. JOURNEYS | The Road Home provides shelter and social services to the homeless and at-risk in North and Northwest Cook County.

• Tyler Nocita of Arlington Heights and Jack Carrera of Des Plaines spent two months this summer interning for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, working behind the scenes in the senator's Capitol Hill office. Interns process constituent requests, help with legislative duties and lead capitol tours for Illinois residents visiting Washington. During that time, Nocita and Carrera gained firsthand knowledge of the legislative process, learned about the inner-workings of the federal government and developed valuable research skills. Nocita is a senior at Indiana University studying political science and near Eastern languages and cultures. Carrera is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying political science and linguistics.

• Gary M. Jones, an Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadet at Loyola University, Chicago, has graduated from the Cadet Leader Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. CLC is a 30-day summer training event focused on training cadets to solve complex leadership issues and problems at the company level. Upon successful completion of the course, the ROTC program and graduation from college, cadets are commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army, Army National Guard or Army Reserve. Jones is a 2012 graduate of William Fremd High School, Palatine.

• Email Your 'Neighbor in the News' items to Norrine Twohey at ntwohey@dailyherald.com.