District 214 to honor alumni

Homecoming is more than dances and football games.

For some Northwest Suburban High School District 214 alumni, homecoming this year will include a pat on the back from their old high school.

Prospect High School, Wheeling High School and Elk Grove High School are honoring distinguished alumni this homecoming season -- one is the Blackhawks team physician, another is a school nurse for impoverished children in Texas and another is the first tenured female math professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Prospect and Elk Grove honored their alumni at homecoming over the weekend, while Wheeling will do it Friday at homecoming.

Hersey High School and Buffalo Grove High School will honor their 2007 alumni this spring.

Rolling Meadows will honor their alumni this winter.

Prospect High School

Jim Baumann (1980)

Since 1991, Baumann has been an editor at the Daily Herald newspaper. He is the editor and manager of the Fox Valley office of the Herald in Elgin. Between 1985 and 1991, he was a Daily Herald reporter.

Throughout his time at the newspaper, Baumann has put together a forum, attended by 900 people, on heroin and club drugs in St. Charles. He also won the Peter Lisagor Award for coverage of the Fox River Grove bus-train disaster. Baumann's community involvement includes serving on a committee of the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce and helping to organize fund-raising for the American Cancer Society, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In 2006, he was awarded a commendation from the Metro Chicago Youth for Christ and in 1995 and again in 2003 he was awarded an Elgin Image Award.

Baumann graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism.

Gail Linskey Rosseau (1974)

After high school, Linskey earned degrees at the University of Iowa and George Washington University. She went on to work for the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch before working as the chief of surgery for the Neurological-Orthopedic Institute of Chicago.

In 1995, she was named the Chicago Woman Mentor of the Year. She's also held leadership positions with the Congress of Neurological Surgeons, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies.

At Prospect, Rosseau was involved in student council and cheerleading.

Maria McCarthy (1981)

Today, McCarthy is an assistant state's attorney with the Cook County State's Attorney office. She is a supervisor of the domestic violence division and the homicide-sex unit. McCarthy has also taught at Northwestern University's School of Law and John Marshall School of Law.

She earned degrees from University of Illinois and Kent College of Law.

Roger Ibbotson (1961)

Ibbotson is the chairman and CIO of Zebra Capital. He's also been a professor at the University of Chicago and is a professor of finance at Yale University's School of Management. In 1977, he founded Ibbotson Associates, a financial research and information firm which he sold to Morningstar in 2006. Besides founding and managing two companies, Ibbotson co-authored two books and 58 academic articles. He's also a public speaker and won several professional awards. He is also a Indiana University Academy of Alumni Fellows.

Ibbotson is married and has two sons, ages 16 and 20 years old. Ibbotson was a member of Prospect's first graduating class and was member of the school's Math Club and Chess Club.

Elk Grove High School

Tracy (Dickson) Berger (1977)

Berger is the telemedicine coordinator and school nurse of an elementary school in Alton, Texas, where she provides care for 750 impoverished students. Many of these children live in deplorable conditions without indoor plumbing, electricity, or adequate food and clothing.

Berger goes beyond her responsibilities as school nurse, using resources available to help meet the medical and educational needs of these students. She holds a doctorate in nutrition and has taught at the college level. She has also served as a nursing supervisor and director of education in various hospitals. She has inspired her own four children to pursue careers in the medical field.

Chikako Mese (1987)

Mese is a professor in the mathematics department of Johns Hopkins University, where she is the first tenured female math instructor. Named professor of the year in 2007, Mese's research specialty is differential geometry curvature and singularities in space. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation to support her research and she has been published in professional journals and books. She was a scholar-athlete in both high school and college, and received her doctorate in math from Stanford University.

Jennifer Tomaso (1989)

Tomaso is the news anchor for WCIA-TV, a CBS affiliate. Tomaso was presented the Illinois Broadcasters Association Silver Dome Award for Best Anchorperson of 2006. She and her husband T.J. (Elk Grove High School, Class of 1988) co-chair events for children in the Champaign, area, where Tomaso is frequently asked to emcee charity events and benefits. The mother of two has received recognition from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for her efforts in finding homes for special needs children.

Wheeling High School

Stephanie Kaplan (1996)

Besides, serving on the 9/11 Commission, Kaplan was the special assistant to the commission's executive and deputy directors and managing editor of its final report, a National Book Award finalist.

Prior to her work with the commission, she served in several policy capacities in Washington, including as assistant director for international security at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. She is a doctoral candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is an MIT Presidential Graduate Fellow and a Pre-Doctoral Fellow with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

In 2000, Kaplan graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with a degree in international politics.

Dr. Michael A. Terry (1990)

Terry is the head team physician for the Chicago Blackhawks and the Windy City Thunderbolts. He is also a team physician for the U.S. Ski and Volleyball teams.

After high school, Terry attended the University of Illinois where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in bio-engineering. He then graduated from the University of Chicago-Pritzker School of Medicine with honors.

Terry has received the highest award for clinical medicine and the highest award in surgery for students at the University of Chicago in addition to being elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He then attended Cornell University's Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

Terry works as an orthopedic surgeon, specializing in sports medicine and shoulder surgery at U of C. He remains involved in bio and mechanical engineering design and has designed medical devices that are currently being used in clinical shoulder surgery.

Terry is the author of multiple scientific articles, book chapters, and is editing an orthopedic surgery book. He also teaches at the medical school and lectures around the world.

Dr. Darren R. Carpizo (1989)

At Wheeling High School, Carpizo was the captain of the varsity football and basketball teams. After high school, he graduated from Cornell University and then attended medical school at the University of Illinois Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine. There he was in the James Scholar Independent Study Program. He did his internship and residency in the Department of Surgery, Division of General Surgery, UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles. Carpizo attended graduate school at UCLA in the department of molecular, cell and developmental biology. There he attained his doctorate.

Carpizo did his surgical fellowship at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer. Carpizo was certified by the American Board of Surgery 2007.