Word: evanston
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Rebecca C. Weiss '99, who attended EvanstonTownship High School in Evanston Ill. with Okrent,said he was "a really amazing person ever sincehigh school...
Tomes--or "Brother Bill," as he has come to be known--has seen some of his best friends murdered on this field. The victims are not pals from his college days at Notre Dame or buddies from the well-to-do Evanston neighborhood where he grew up. They are mostly the hardened souls of the Gangster Disciples, their Vice Lord rivals and a tally of cross-fire casualties who lived in the wretched Cabrini-Green housing projects just a mile or so from Chicago's gleaming downtown...
...story, about the first of what became a string of epiphanies, hundreds of times, and always with the same sense of genuine astonishment. Until that moment he had never thought of himself as a particularly religious man. Born in a middle-class home in Akron, Ohio, and raised in Evanston, he stood out as a gifted artist and athlete. He received Jesuit training at Loyola Academy before attending Notre Dame, where he studied English and philosophy and received a bachelor's degree, then two years later a master's in counseling and guidance...
When fighting erupts, Brother Bill has his routine down pat. From his Evanston home, it's a 35-min. drive to Cabrini. En route, he pulls on his robe and begins prayer. Upon arriving, he walks briskly to the scene, where the shooting has usually already begun. His pale blue robe aflutter, he stands in the center of gang gunfire. He says he can hear the crack of guns from snipers in the buildings as well as see shooters running on the ground or ducking in and out of entryways. But thoughts of his safety never cross his mind...
Okrent, a Cabot House resident and physics concentrator, was found by a man walking his dog at 6:30 a.m. on March 16. The Evanston, Ill., native died en route to Massachusetts General Hospital...