Honorees at the Feb. 22, 2003, Hall of Fame dinner included (from left) Mike O'Connor, John Kringas, Ted Bacino, Eileen Orr (representing the family of Kathy Orr McDonald), Jaime Jordan, Steve Woodruff, Rick Cerrone and Rick Ridnour. Photo by Ben Devries.

The Honorees

Ted Bacino Editor in Chief 1954-1955

After the new Northern Star made its debut in October 1954, editor Ted Bacino and staff received the ultimate testament to the paper's professional new image and popularity: President Leslie Holmes' decision to debut his plans for the creation of the new Northern Illinois University in the student newspaper.

Through his tenure as editor, Bacino learned skills that have continued to serve him, regardless of his career path. "Working at The Northern Star was such a great experience," he says. "It wasn't always good for grades, but it taught me skills I have continued to use - from managing deadlines and dealing with public relations to layout and design."

Bacino also left his mark on NIU in other creative ways. He wrote and directed the first musical at NIU, titled "Take It From The Top." He also wrote and directed the first two homecoming alumni shows, "The EN-NI-YOO Show" of 1960 and 1961.

After graduating with a master's degree, Bacino went on to work in Rockford, first at what is now Boylan High School as an assistant principal and then later at Rock Valley College as director of public relations. He continued to pursue his interest in music and theatre while in Rockford as well by founding the Starlight Theatre at Rock Valley and the Cabaret Dinner Theater at the Clock Tower Hotel and Resort.

Bacino later would pack up his family and leave for his next career challenge - assistant to the deputy secretary of state for Illinois. He'd later move to Washington when his boss was appointed to a post in the Reagan Administration. That move would lead him to a marketing job in California and then retirement.
But retirement has brought Bacino back to his college passion: writing. And if you ask him, "it has been like falling into a pot of gold."

Bacino now spends his days living either in London or Palm Springs, Calif., keeping track of his three grown children -- Lara, Mickey and Geoff -- and seven grandchildren. He also writes for three trade magazines: one in the credit union industry, one in the auto brokerage industry and another in the travel industry.
"It's the one thing to never forget … you never lose your ability to write," he says. "There are a lot of opportunities for writers out there and when you find the one that's right for you, it makes life perfect."

- Joelle McGinnis

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Rick Cerrone Sports Writer, Sports Editor 1972-1976

Rick Cerrone's high school guidance counselor once asked him about his career aspirations. Rick immediately replied, "I want to be the public relations director for the New York Yankees."

Now that's focus - even for a baseball nut who grew up just outside the Bronx.

Three decades later, there he is: Director of Media Relations, New York Yankees. Rick's stadium office overlooks perhaps the most famous venue in sports. Since landing the job in 1996, he's ridden in four ticker-tape parades down Broadway, celebrating World Series titles.

How NIU and the Northern Star played into this dream is similar to how Rick has built his career: with talent, of course, but also by positioning himself to know the right people at the right times.

In high school, Rick also worked as a sports stringer for a local newspaper in
Westchester County, N.Y. In 1971, his editor and mentor, Stanley Shalett, accepted the sports editor job at the Daily Chronicle in, of all places, DeKalb, Ill.

Not long after that, Rick was shopping for a college. Shalett called and said, "You should come out here," Rick remembers. "This was the start of Northern being a major college. Basketball was big. This wasn't Slippery Rock. If you wanted to be a sports writer, there was a lot to cover. Stanley also told me to go where there was a great, daily student newspaper, because you need to write every day."

So, Rick ventured to the cornfields of northern Illinois. He quickly found his way to the Star, where he first covered golf and tennis and now admits, "I had no clue. People would read my stories and then ask, 'Have you ever covered a tennis match before?'"

But eventually, he got the football beat - which included a trip to California for NIU's victory over Fresno State. "I remember being on the team plane coming home," Rick says, "and I'm typing my story on a little, portable typewriter. I think they could hear me at the other end of the plane."

After graduating, Rick edited and published Baseball magazine from his home in New York. He went on to work for the baseball commissioner's office, do a radio talk show in New York City and direct public relations for the Pittsburgh Pirates, before the Yankees hired him.

He does make it back to NIU occasionally - though not usually for Homecoming. Octobers can get pretty busy in the Bronx.

- Jim Killam

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John Kringas Photographer 1984-1990

John Kringas shoots for one of the world's greatest newspapers, the Chicago Tribune.

During college alone, he published images in the Tribune, the New York Times, The Associated Press, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Grand Rapids Press, the Rockford Register Star and the DeKalb Daily Chronicle. He attended the 1984 Missouri Photo Workshop. He has countless honors, including a 1989 Hearst Journalism Award for photography and a shared Pulitzer with other Tribuine staffers.

And he credits it all to the Northern Star.

"Nothing would've ever happened in my life if it weren't for the Northern Star," said Kringas, a 1990 alumnus. "I came from an impoverished background. I never had been out of the state of Illinois. Never. My first time out of the state was for the Northern Star."

"John has certainly made himself an outstanding example of the photographic part of newspapering," former Star adviser Jerry Thompson said. "He did that while he was at the Star, and he has certainly done it by getting on the Tribune right after."

Kringas took an interest in the camera in sixth grade. He shot for his junior high and high school newspapers, and chose NIU for the Star, applying for work even before classes began.

But he found the darkroom lacking, and joined others on the photo staff in pushing for two new light-focal mat enlargers. Although Kringas provided his own photo paper and chemistry, he used those enlargers to make prints for his portfolio.

Kringas also helped organize and standardize the filing of negatives.

The photo editor's job held no appeal. "I never wanted to be anything but a photographer," he said. "I've done everything you could possibly imagine, from presidents to world leaders to just regular people. It's really important for me to do middle-America stories. I really like that - everyday people."

He also loves his "insane" schedule.

"It's my key to the world," he said. "I think back to the things I've done there, the people I've met, the places I've been. The week of my 25th or 26th birthday, I was shooting the NBA finals. For the Chicago Tribune. That was pretty wild."

John and his wife, Lisa, are parents to 5-year-old Johnny and 4-year-old George. He returned to NIU last spring to teach a photojournalism class.

- Mark McGowan

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Kathy Orr McDonald Managing Editor, Editor in Chief 1982-1983

Kathy Orr McDonald was the kind of journalist with ink in her veins. And a real dame.

As managing editor and editor at the Northern Star in 1982-83, KO, as she was known to Star-types, was a familiar presence: cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, gravel voice heard throughout Roy Campbell Hall, addressing you by your last name, with a clap - or thump - on your shoulder. And then later, she would clank mugs of beer with you at the Twin Taps or the Candelight for $1.90 pitchers on Mondays, and dance with you at one of the many infamous, raucous parties at the rambling, 8 bedroom house on College Avenue.

Kathy began her writing career early, as the second child in a family of nine in Chicago's southside suburb Westlawn Park. She won her first award in seventh grade, and was editor of her high school newspaper. From the Northern Star, Kathy won a scholarship to Sangamon State University, followed by turns at the Gannett News Service in Springfield, The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and the Rockford Register Star, before coming home to her southside Chicago roots at the Daily Southtown.

It was her tenure at the Southtown, from 1989 until her premature death in 1997, where Kathy's professional grit, long-standing dedication to the common man and her genuine affection for her co-workers culminated in a legacy.

"Kathy was a tough, aggressive reporter who was well-respected by her peers and in the business community," said John Obrecht, business editor of the Daily Southtown. "She was well regarded in the aviation, railroad, automotive and steel industries for her knowledge and the thoroughness of her reporting."

Kathy continued to win writing awards and honors, as well as the enduring respect of her colleagues, peers and sources. Peter Fooie, executive director of the Calumet Area Industrial Commission, remembers: "It was always said that Kathy was a journalist who got all the facts right…because Kathy made the complex clear, because her writing showed that work's dignity came from the worker and not the other way around and because she viewed industrial life with global vision, she succeeded in reporting the local truth."

Chicago Southland Development instituted an award for journalistic excellence in Kathy's honor. The Chicago City Council adopted a resolution in her memory, proposed and written by 13th Ward Alderman Frank J. Olivo. Today, a Northern Star scholarship bears her name.

- Sharyl Holtzman

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Mike O'Connor Copy Editor, Editor in Chief 1966-1968

In the spring of 1967, Michael O'Connor created a special section for the Northern Star that he knew exceeded press capacity.

"There were five or six of us who hand-inserted those, all 18,000," the Kankakee native said. "I was the only one who had experience as a newspaper carrier, and with inserting. I swear I did 8,000 to 10,000 of those things."

Similar early lessons about production served O'Connor well when he bounded from the newsroom to the pressroom for the second half of his career, which included a dozen years with Gannett.

His jump came in 1984 as special projects director for the Decatur Herald & Review.

"We basically had a hell of a problem with the football section we were putting out in the fall. I wrote a two-page memo to my editor about how we could really make this thing work a lot better," O'Connor said.

"Two weeks later, the publisher walked by my desk and said, 'Would you like to go to lunch?' I never turn down free lunches, especially from publishers. He said, 'I'd like to offer you a new job,' pulled out the memo I'd written, and said, 'Here's the job description.' "

O'Connor joined the Star in 1966 as a copy editor, and met his wife, Linda Murney. He served as editor in the fall of 1968.

His first post-college job was a three-year stint in Rockford, interrupted by a 14-month tour of Vietnam. In 1972, O'Connor experienced more foreshadowing as editor and publisher of the Mendota Reporter. "The first thing he did was switch it from letterpress to offset," Star alumna Kathy Farren said. "The letterpress is still in the basement."

Despite loving the "immediacy" of small-town journalism, he returned to dailies in Decatur in 1978. He took his second production gig in Bloomington in 1987 and moved to Gannett in 1990, working in Stockton, Calif.; Utica, N.Y., and Montgomery, Ala.

He never forgot his newsroom days.

"I know how bad it is Friday night with football or basketball. I don't need all the explanations. We need to just figure out how best we can get it done."

Mike, an avid golfer, and Linda have three children, Timothy, Erin and Christopher. They are grandparents to 3-year-old Sam.

- Mark McGowan

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Rick Ridnour NIU Marketing Professor

One would half-expect anyone on the NIU College of Business faculty to be caught up in the hoopla this year. After all, they've been given a palatial new classroom building with technology other schools would kill for.

Get Rick Ridnour talking, though, and the focus quickly turns to students: how much he loves working with them, how they challenge him, the mutual respect he and they enjoy. After 12 years of teaching full-time in NIU's marketing department, he feels he has the perfect job in the perfect place.

Over the years, some of Rick's best marketing students also worked in the Northern Star advertising department. He quickly realized that was no coincidence. Students would come to class talking about real-life experiences in sales, time management, deadlines, project management, depending on other people and handling rejection.

"Working at the Northern Star is one of the greatest opportunities a student can have," he said. "It's all of the things this college should represent. This is real. This is no ivory tower. This is running a newspaper and doing it responsibly."

Kelly Hahn, former Star ad manager and now an account representative with the Moline Dispatch, said Dr. Ridnour never made students feel unimportant - always taking time for them, even if they weren't in his classes.

"He had such a passion for teaching that made going to class so much more enjoyable," she said. "His enthusiasm was contagious. On numerous occasions he came willingly to talk with the advertising staff of the Northern Star. Every time he left, the staff was motivated and excited."

Star Business Adviser Maria Krull adds: "When we have a situation arise and the kids are bouncing ideas back and forth, I always tell them, "See what Professor Ridnour thinks."

Students and colleagues recognize Rick's devotion. In 2001, he won an NIU Excellence in Undergraduate Education Award, after receiving several similar honors over the years from the Marketing department and the College of Business.

Rick's tidy Barsema Hall office still smells like new carpet. On the bookshelves stand a few small, framed photos of his wife Amy, their two sons and daughters-in-law and four grandchildren. There isn't much on the walls, though. It's clear that Rick doesn't hole up here.

"This is not my office," he said. "The classroom is my office."

- Jim Killam

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Cary Spivak Reporter, Editorial Editor, Newsroom Supervisor, Public Affairs Editor 1974-77

In early summer 1977, Cary Spivak answered his phone in the Northern Star newsroom.

"Have you heard about the accident?" a familiar voice asked.

No.

"It involves an NIU official."

We have a lot of officials here. How high up?

"The highest."

The caller - whom Spivak to this day hasn't publicly identified - didn't offer much more. But in the coming weeks, Spivak and the Star pieced the story together: NIU President Richard Nelson had sideswiped a 21-year-old student riding her bicycle along Sycamore Road, injuring her slightly. He got out of his car and asked if she was OK. When a witness said he'd called an ambulance, Nelson got back into his car and drove away. But at least one person had recognized him. NIU police had paid Nelson a visit later that evening, but city police quickly closed the case.

Spivak's reporting - including how Nelson had his university-owned car repainted soon after the accident, and how he hadn't even had a driver's license since 1967 - led the state's attorney to reopen the case. Eventually, Nelson was indicted and convicted for leaving the scene of an accident. In January 1978, he resigned as NIU president - all because of a story that at first had seemed too incredible to be true, even in the post-Watergate era.

"Cary was not afraid to ask hard questions of anybody," former Star adviser Jerry Thompson said. "He was skeptical of glib and quick answers, especially from people in positions of power. He was very skeptical - just like you want to good reporter to be."

After NIU, Spivak worked for the Rockford Register Star, Milwaukee Business Journal and United Press International, before joining the pre-merger Milwaukee Sentinel in 1987 to cover business and gambling. Today, for the Journal Sentinel, Spivak and Dan Bice write an award-winning investigative column that exposes political and business corruption in Wisconsin. Milwaukee Magazine characterized Spivak - "a sloppy, glad-handing Chicago native" - as two parts Oscar Madison, one part Columbo.

And one part Dad. Spivak and his wife, Liz, have five kids, ages 5 to 19. That may have softened him away from work, but on the job he can't see himself doing anything other than hard news.

"My fear about writing features has always been that I'll make a guy look really good and then a week later he's indicted."

- Jim Killam

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