Tuesday, March 24, 2009
News / News Bites Famous alums or lifelong troublemakers -- you decide.
Posted by Michael Miner on 03.24.09 at 03:44 PM
Twenty minutes ago I didn't know Chicago Public Schools alums had their own Web site. They do, and here it is, at cpsalumni.org.
"We don’t have any money for marketing," says Brad Harbaugh, who runs the site, "so I take what we do have -- information on alumni -- and put it together in interesting mixes."
The third mix, which he's just given me a heads up on, is called "CPS Alumni Journalists and Media Personalities." It's a handsomely put-together list of 99 names and bios, jauntily alphabetized by first names, and ranging from Anna Davlantes (Disney Magnet and Lane Tech), who won a local Emmy in 2005 as a Channel Five anchor, to the late William Paley (Schurz High), former president of CBS.
In the mix: the late best-selling author John Gunther and ABC News producer and multiple Emmy and Peabody winner Stuart Schwartz, both of whom I mention here because they're graduates of Lake View High, a block from my house, and those kids ought to know who came before them.
Harbaugh's site, underwritten by the Sloan Foundation, was launched last April by CPS, which hopes to kindle an allegiance among the system's three million living alumni to the city's public schools generally as well as to their individual alma maters. Harbaugh is not one of those alumni. He's from Niles, Michigan, he came to Chicago to act, and he spotted an ad in the paper.
He's produced two earlier lists of distinguished alums -- musicians, at www.cpsalumni.org/music, and Olympic Athletes at www.cpsalumni.org/athletes.
And here's a link to the master list -- those from all fields "whose accomplishments are unassailable." Among them, Edgar Bergen, who if the story I heard holds water, modeled Charlie McCarthy on a newspaper boy stationed outside Lake View High at Ashland and Irving Park.
Comments (4)
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The site needs a lot of help. There are a lot of errors, and a ton of significant omissions, particularly on the list of Olympians and athletes. I will try to register, and see what I can do.
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Robert, please do register and give us a hand! A lot of the content is user generated and we rely on alumni to set us straight when we get it wrong. Please feel free to contact me directly at 773-553-3154.
Frank Burgos Was a McCormick Fellow at the Media Management Center, Class of 2006. recently: Managing Editor The Record Hackensack, NJ Burgos at northjersey dot com Frank Burgos is the managing editor of The Record, overseeing day-to-day operations in the newsroom and a staff of 230. A veteran journalist and a Pulitzer Prize finalist at the Philadelphia Daily News, Burgos earned a bachelor's degree in government from Oberlin College and a master's from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He got his start as a teenager in journalism at Youth Communication in Chicago, and I'm pretty sure he attended CPS.
Thank you. We'll look into it. For the record, anyone can register on CPSalumni.org and nominate folks for the honor roll. You do not even need to be an alum, just register as a guest. There is no charge. As a guest, you will also have access to 100 years worth of graduation records, 1873-1973. If your parents or grandparents are alum, you can look up what schools they attended.
