Dan Tani putting on his socks: Great TV

I'll get to the business about Dan Tani putting on his socks in a minute, but as you all recall, I'm sure, I've got three more months of gloating to do about the DuPage staff's accomplishments last year. Here goes:

October: Not only did Marni Pyke travel to Washington D.C on her own dime to do a day-in-the-life type story on U.S. Rep Peter Roskam of Wheaton, but she also took along her camera and snapped a Page 1-caliber photo of the freshman Congressman leaving the Capitol. And that's not all. The same day, she also interviewed a candidate running in the Democratic primary in Roskam's district. Marni phoned in quotes for a story she had put together in advance of her trip. Small wonder she got promoted recently from my office to a new beat at the "Mother Ship," as we affectionately call our flagship offices in Arlington Heights.

November: It can be challenge to write an entertaining story about something that isn't happening, yet Justin Kmitch did a fascinating piece on why there are few national landmarks in the suburbs. A really nice slice of life story that probably opened many eyes and jabbed a few of us for not having the greatest sense of history in the 'burbs.

December: As the copy editor who worked with Christy Gutowski put it: "I'd be at home watching chick flicks, not checking out the competition's Web site." But that's what Christy was doing the day she was recuperating from minor surgery. She discovered one of those evil downtown papers had a story on its Web site about a killer asking for the death penalty. From home, Christy made calls and put together a piece that had even more detail on the topic than the competition. If that weren't enough, Christy showed her versatility with her story of Ben Hayes, a heroic boy born with cerebral palsy and other birth defects who won a record-breaking settlement in court.

All winners of the first-ever DUPY awards got a priceless engraved trophy and a valuable Daily Herald knick-knack. Breathless anticipation already is building in the newsroom over who the 2008 DUPY winners might be.

Oh, yeah. Astronaut Dan Tani.

He's the reason I'm publicly making Cathi Edman my first nominee for the January DUPY award (and, of course, the official editorial excellence award we have companywide). Cathi, I mentioned a few weeks ago, bonded with Dan's mother Rose, who was killed in a car-train crash in Lombard. Cathi wrote an especially poignant story about Rose's life. But Cathi still was bitten with the NASA bug. And, after jumping through all sorts of bureaucratic and technological hoops, she secured an interview yesterday with Dan, who's been aboard the International Space Station since October. Her interview played live on the NASA Network.

That's the first time, I believe, we've ever scooped ourselves on TV, but it's a whole new era. And, as I write this, the 10-minute interview is posted on dailyherald.com. It's a hoot; you really ought to take a look. You old-fashioned types (and I'm one of you) might prefer the transcript that starts on Page 1 of today's paper.

What makes this interview so noteworthy is that Cathi invited readers to ask the questions. Many of the questions came from our younger readers, and, as you know, kids say the gol-durnedest things. It made for anything but a stilted interview. I was late for an important HR meeting at the Mother Ship, but I had to stick around and watch Dan give a demonstration of how you put on your socks while weightless. Great TV. And great journalism.

Maybe even DUPY-worthy.