Hospice nurses climb ranks to become certified specialists

• The Hospice of Northeastern Illinois, Barrington, announced that Mary Alice Burdett, Daneen Gorski-Adams, Valerie Lundvick and Yvonne Pickett, all members of its nursing staff, have earned the designation of Certified Hospice and Palliative Nursing specialists, after passing exams offered by the National Board for Certification of Hospice and Palliative Nurses.

Additionally, nursing staff members Lynn Miller and Sandy Obrock passed the Certified Hospice and Palliative Nursing Assistant exam and Deb Harper passed a re-certification exam.

Hospice of Northeastern Illinois is a nonprofit providing comprehensive end-of-life care to families in McHenry, Lake, Northwest Cook, Kane, Boone and DuPage counties.

• The Des Plaines Public Library welcomed Heather Imhoff as head of pubic information services.

Imhoff, a graduate of Maine South High School and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will oversee the development and distribution of information regarding programs, services, activities, issues, policies and procedures of the library to the public and staff. She will also serve as library spokesperson to the media.

• Palatine resident Kerry M. Lavelle, founder of Lavelle Law, Ltd., was appointed to the board of directors for the Strack & Van Til grocery chain, a subsidiary of Central Grocers Inc., which operates 28 stores in Illinois and Indiana.

• Santimoy Banerjee celebrated 20 years as a member of the Des Plaines Toastmasters organization.

A native of Calcutta, India, Banerjee immigrated to the United States in 1969, and initially worked performing biochemical research at Harvard University. He was also employed as an instructor at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, later doing applied research.

Through the public library, Banerjee found out about Toastmasters and got involved with the group to improve his scientific lectures.

He began his own business developing personal skin care products in 1994 and today is semi-retired.

• Mary Flanagan and Elaine Sage, both of Arlington Heights, have received the Archdiocese of Chicago Heart of the School award in the "Rising Star" category.

The award is given to those who have taught less than five years and exhibit vigor, excellence and innovative strategies in and outside the classroom.

Flanagan has taught science for nearly two years at St. Thomas of Villanova School in Palatine and has started a science fair, assisted the Scholastic Bowl team and sponsored knitting and bearded dragon clubs.

Sage is the third-grade teacher at St. Francis Xavier School in Wilmette. She has created listening centers where students can access animated stories on the Internet, and her students have used Web sites to create brochures for their towns and to enhance their study of science, math, language arts and religion lessons.