Bob Morgan introduced his friend and the day's speaker, Joel Weisman. One thing we didn't know about Joel's life was that he was an Indian Guide with Bob when both their sons were young. Joel's Indian name was Big Flame and Bob's was Bald Eagle. What they liked the best about that program was the boys and fathers had to attend together.

 

As a student at Sullivan High School in Rogers Park, Joel was involved in junior Kiwanis. He has always thought highly of service organizations and glad to see many of them still active and flourishing.

 

In college he spent many days at the Daily Illini, the U of I newspaper. He learned a lot and met his life-long friend Roger Ebert. He is very devoted to the alumni association, having at one time served as chairman. He was also a member of the university’s athletic board.

 

Joel balanced his day job of working at the Chicago Sun-Times and night classes at IIT Chicago’s Kent School of Law. During his journalism days, Joel worked for the city news bureau, and was the Midwest correspondent for The Washington Post. He was nominated twice for a Pulitzer. He later worked as a commentator and news analyst for a WGN-TV news program. He is most notably known for his Emmy award winning job as host and senior editor of WTTW's  "Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review" for 40 years. The half hour show brought journalists from several Chicago news sources (print, radio and internet) to review the stories of the week on local, regional and state levels. The show is still on WTTW with good talent involved.