Good News Sunday: 100-year-old Suburban Ghost Army vet to receive Congressional Gold Medal
This is Good News Sunday, a compilation of some of the more upbeat and inspiring stories published by the Daily Herald during the previous week:
Hoffman Estates resident Bernard Bluestein’s service with the Ghost Army was kept a military secret for more than 50 years.
But since its existence was declassified in 1996, members of the extraordinary World War II unit that used deceptive tactics like inflatable tanks and radio trickery to dupe the Germans, have received their long overdue acclaim.
That continues in March when Bluestein and the six other surviving members of the 1,100-member 23rd Headquarters Special Troops will be the inaugural recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal.
Bluestein, 100, will travel to Washington, D.C., to attend a March 21 awards ceremony hosted by House Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional leaders.
For the full story, click here.
Naperville women lauded for restoration efforts after 2021 tornado
Nearly 2 1/2 years after a tornado ripped through her neighborhood, Katie Long Piper has her yard back.
The trees in the Naperville woman’s backyard may be gone, but she doesn’t have to worry about finding shards of glass, pieces of porcelain or other debris sticking up from the grass.
“The first six months, all I did was pick up bucket after bucket of debris,” Long Piper recently told council members, adding that her insurance company, like others, did not cover the expense of yard restoration. “Now, I have a yard.”
Piper is among the 80 families helped by a community effort spearheaded by residents Kristy Kennedy and Kelly Dougherty, who banded together to help their neighbors get their yards fixed.
City council members this week recognized the two women for organizing a $1.5 million grant fund to help restore the yards of those affected by the 2021 tornado.
For the full story, click here.
Fremd senior named Scholar in prestigious science talent search
Fremd High School senior Aditya Gupta has been named a Scholar in the Regeneron Science Talent Search — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious science and math competition — for his research into applying machine learning to predicting crop yields for farmers.
The honor puts him among impressive company. Throughout its more than 80 years, the competition’s alumni have gone on to receive 13 Nobel Prizes, 11 National Medals of Science, six Breakthrough Prizes, 21 MacArthur Foundation Fellowships and two Fields Medals.
But the competition wasn’t the reason, or the first time, Aditya has applied himself to this type of research, having previously studied ways to improve the method of predicting earthquakes in India.
“This competition was never the end goal,” he said. “I’m real passionate about these predictors. I really like combining different fields.”
In addition to his most recent recognition, Aditya also achieved a perfect score on the SAT.
For the full story, click here.
• Good News Sunday will run each weekend. Please visit dailyherald.com/newsletters to sign up for our Good News Sunday newsletter.