Woman's work earns recognition from group

Arlington Heights resident Katie Pope was the overall winner of the Barrington Orthopedic Specialists Values Award for the second quarter of 2007. Pope, a physician assistant, assists in the office and in surgery. She earned the award for her accountability, respect, honesty, compassion and teamwork. Runners up were Brad Bessemer, a physical therapist and site manager of the rehabilitation department for the Bartlett office, and Marla Mlodoch of Des Plaines, a bookkeeper for the practice, who works from the Hoffman Estates office.

• Kate Kuehn, whose stage name is Kate Kuen, will be on the road this fall appearing with the Windy City Players Tour. Kuehn, a 2003 John Hersey High School graduate, will perform in the Children's Theatre adaptation of "Cinderella" in Oklahoma City, Okla.; Dallas, Bryan, Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Texas; and Milwaukee, Wis.

• Hanover Park resident Jose Bardales, a certified nursing assistant at Alden Poplar Creek Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Hoffman Estates, was selected as a "hero" in long-term care by the Illinois Health Care Association and the Illinois Council on Long Term Care.

• Elaine Quinn of Lake Barrington , director of the Little Angels Christian Preschool, a ministry of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Barrington, has earned the Illinois Director Credential from the office of Gateways to Opportunity, Barrington, on behalf of the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

• Becky Leff, a fourth-grade teacher at Quest Academy, Palatine, attended a one-week competitive application seminar at New York University titled "The American Revolution."

• Violin instructor Rachel Harding-Klaus has joined the Midwest Conservatory of Music, Hoffman Estates. Harding-Klaus holds a bachelor's and a master's degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with David and Linda Cerone and was awarded the Joseph and Elsie Scharff Prize in violin and the Dr. Jerome Gross Prize.