Wheeling Twp. Democrats honor leadership award winner

The Wheeling Township Democratic organization named Pat Corcoran as recipient of its second annual Patrick S. Botterman Leadership Award. Corcoran received the honor as part of the Patrick Botterman Memorial Event held Sunday, May 31, at Chevy Chase Golf Club in Wheeling.

Corcoran was formerly a reporter with the Pioneer Press. In 2007, he accepted a position as communications director with Mark Pera's campaign for Illinois Third Congressional District. Since that campaign, Corcoran has worked on several other grass roots campaigns including Daniel Biss for State Representative, Dan Kotowski for State Senator and most recently, a slate of municipal candidates in Berwyn.

• The University of Notre Dame's Black Cultural Arts Council presented one of its two 2009 Thurgood Marshall Scholarships to Christian Moore of Hoffman Estates. Moore a Hoffman Estates High School graduate, was chosen for her participation within the organization and involvement in the Notre Dame community.

She was honored at the Black Cultural Arts Council's Black Coffeehouse, a cultural event celebrating the African Diaspora through interpretive dance, song an poetry.

Moore is a first-year sociology and psychology major at the Indiana university.

• Michael C. Thompson, a junior majoring in economic and political science at the University of Rochester, N.Y., spent his spring 2009 semester studying in London, United Kingdom. He is the son of Barbara and Randy Thompson of Buffalo Grove and a graduate of Adlai E. Stevenson High School.

• Eric Waldstein was offered the position of head football coach/physical education faculty for the 2009-2010 academic year at Harper College, Palatine, pending approval by the board of trustees. Waldstein has coached college football for a decade, recently serving as special teams coordinator and offensive backfield coach at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa.

Waldstein joined Harper's Athletic department as acting head football coach in April, to lead the football staff in recruiting and strategic planning for the fall season. His full-time contract is projected to start Aug. 18.

Harper's Hawks football team clinched the Division III national championship last season after a come-from-behind victory over Phoenix College in the Valley of the Sun Bowl.

• Jennifer Conlon, a Maine East Social Science teacher, will be one of 60 teachers nationwide attending the week-long, prestigious Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers. The institute will offer Conlon the opportunity to study in detail recent Supreme Court cases and to learn innovative teaching methods to convey this information to students. Well-known Supreme Court lawyers, reporters, scholars and educators will be among the speakers and instructors. .

Conlon, who earned a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, is finishing up her fourth year at Maine East, where she teaches Government, Government/Democracy Accelerated, Law in American Society and Modern American History.