Illness 'really never stopped' Lake Zurich teacher
Kathleen Surdynski's zeal for life is what sustained her since childhood through the debilitating effects of muscular dystrophy.
The 28-year-old Lake Zurich High School German-language teacher lost her battle against the illness Friday.
But her legacy at the school will live on through a memorial fund established in her name to provide scholarships to students for study or travel abroad, said her mother, Karen Surdynski of Lake Zurich.
"If it blossoms into something else, we don't know," she said. "We just don't know how big it can get."
Surdynski accomplished everything she set out to do despite her mobility being affected by her illness. She was wheelchair-bound or on a scooter most of her life, Karen Surdynski said.
"Her disability did not hold her back," she said. "She had it all her life but that really never stopped her. It is truly a blessing she was able to touch so many lives in her short life."
Surdynski graduated from Lake Zurich High School in 1997, then Lake Forest College, and eventually got her master's degree in education and leadership from Chicago's St. Xavier University.
She turned her grade-school passion for the German language into a career and taught German for six years at Lake Zurich High School.
Surdynski's students were devoted to and protective of her, and she of them, said Art Ladenburger, her middle-school German teacher.
"Anytime she wanted something, there was a line of kids wanting to help," said Ladenburger, who accompanied Surdynski on school trips to Lake Zurich's sister city Nittenau, Germany. "I realized how difficult it is in Europe to get around if you are in a scooter, but that didn't stop her. That never prevented her from doing anything that she needed to get done or wanted to do."
Ladenburger, who retired in 2005 from Lake Zurich Unit District 95, will serve as Surdynski's replacement for the last two months of the school year.
"It's ironic it's me that winds up finishing up her career," he said. "In all honesty, the first day I couldn't get up the courage to sit at her desk. That was the toughest thing for me this morning."
Surdynski is survived by her parents, Phil and Karen Surdynski, brother, Will Surdynski, and grandparents Ted and Helen Surdynski and George and Catherine Wirtitsch.
Visitation will be from 9 a.m. until the noon memorial service Saturday at Holy Family Catholic Church, 2515 Palatine Road, Inverness.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Kathi Surdynski Memorial Fund, c/o Cambridge Bank, 1100 Rand Road, Lake Zurich, IL 60047. All money would go to the foreign-language department at Lake Zurich High School.