People are the mortar that form the sturdy walls of civic life and are the unseen adhesive that binds one to another and to the community they serve.
Never was it more evident than this year with the announcement of the 31st annual ceremony of the Park Forest Hall of Fame, scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday at Freedom Hall, 410 Lakewood Blvd., which will toast six who contributed greatly to the growth and strength of the village.
This year’s honorees include Warren Wood, who devoted his working life to the youth of the village, and his wife, Janette, who spent four decades as a caring nurse in the community and now spreads cheerful messages on painted rocks throughout the village.
Vernice Johnson-Warren helped establish a program to feed the hungry and revitalized a school building.
Betsy Williams turned an epidemic into a successful plan to feed the community.
Gregory Randall authored the book that explained Park Forest to the world.
The induction of Sam Beber completes a 31-year circle in the history of the village.
Warren Wood made it his life’s work to help Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center. (Penny Shnay/for Daily Southtown)
A life-long resident of Park Forest, Warren Wood once earned the Boy Scouts God and Country award for his work with a migrant day care program, focusing on recreational activities for children. Perhaps it was his interest in the welfare of others that led him to choose his calling.
After getting his degree in psychology from Western Illinois University, Wood came back to Park Forest and began his life’s work with Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center, which comprises more than 30 community-based programs for youth, adults and families.
Janette Wood was a home care nurse in the south suburbs for 40 years and for a short time with Park Forest’s Nurses Plus organization. (Penny Shnay/for Daily Southtown)
Janette Wood was a home care nurse in the south suburbs for 40 years and for a short time with Park Forest’s Nurses Plus organization. These days she is known for her delivery of more than 1,000 rocks decorated with inspirational messages and is involved in creating rocks for “Somonauk Sam, the Slithery Snake,” which winds throughout newly restored Somonauk Park.
Vernice Johnson-Warren established a clinic in Monee, making it easier for residents to access care closer to home. (Penny Shnay/for Daily Southtown)
As the vice chair of the Will County Community Health program, life-long resident Vernice Johnson-Warren established a clinic in Monee, making it easier for residents to access care closer to home. She helped establish a Haunts Against Hunger Halloween fundraiser to help feed families at food pantries by turning Talala School gym into a haunted house.
As president of the school’s PTO, Johnson-Warren helped write grants that revitalized the school’s playground equipment and made improvements to the school’s interior.
Betsy Williams is the food service manager for Rich Township High School District 227. (Penny Shnay/for Daily Southtown)
Betsy Williams, the food service manager for Rich Township High School District 227, affected the lives of both students and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic, when from the day the country closed down in March 2020, her department provided curbside drive-up meals to any family regardless of where they lived.
Williams’ staff helped change school kitchens into functional assembly lines and Williams estimates more than two million meals were served in the first year.
Historian, novelist and nonfiction writer Gregory Randall’s parents were part of the first generation to live in the village, moving to Park Forest in 1951. His work as a landscape architect and urban planner led him to rediscover the character of the community in his book “America’s Original G.I. Town,” published in 2000 and revised in 2010.
The initial hall of fame ceremony in 1994 honored one man, village founder Phillip Klutznick. The induction of Sam Beber, Phillip Klutznick’s brother-in-law and confidant, completes the family circle. The two became business partners in American Community Builders, the developers of Park Forest.
At one time, Beber’s residence was on Monee Road, a few doors down from the large Klutznick home.
There is no room here to detail all these achievements, but we cannot praise these new arrivals without paying attention to Jane Nicoll, the vice president and archivist for the Park Forest Historical Society, who through the years has been the strongest and tireless believer in the value of the village’s history.
Her unflagging efforts, such as the hall of fame ceremony and her creation of the Park Forest House Museum in St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Monee Road, have spread the story of this unique village around the world.
Jerry Shnay, at jerryshnay@gmail.com, is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
