CHICAGO / MIDWEST
Honorees
2015
Mike Dukewich
On Saturday. September 12, 2012, Michael Dukewich passed away unexpectedly at the age of 58 at his Rolling Meadows home. He left behind wife Christy, son Clay and hundreds of friends and colleagues who would miss the up-tempo guy with a video camera who they affectionately called “Duke.” To have known him is to have known much more than a cameraman --- Duke was a gentleman who tried, and succeeded, in connecting with everyone whose life he touched.
He graduated from Elk Grove Village High School before heading to Miami to study television production at Florida International University. He graduated in 1976 and began his career at ABC7 in 1977, following in the footsteps of his father who was also a cameraman at ABC7.
For 35 years, Mike was a talented, proud and highly-skilled member of the ABC7 news team. His career spanned the newsgathering gamut – from the early days of shooting on film to the varied videotape format eras, right into the current digital age. He spent the last 10 years starting his workday at 4:00 a.m., helping to develop ABC 7 Chicago News in the Morning. One of Duke’s passions was sports, and the early shift allowed him time to catch most of son Clay’s football games at Fremd High School.
Another of Duke’s passions was making sure everything was perfect for ABC7’s annual holiday food drive. People he would showcase through his viewfinder were people, just like him, and he never failed to show compassion to everyone he covered and the stories they shared.
Staff members raved about the Duke’s abilities to always get the right shot, but they also always relied on his ability to bring a measure of calm to otherwise chaotic scenes. One early-morning live shot from a ship out on Lake Michigan was plagued with technical difficulties. Despite the glum faces, Duke was able to see beyond the incident and pointed out how everyone on the ship had been treated to a truly glorious sunrise. That’s the Duke we celebrate tonight.
Alison Ebert
Alison was born on July 18, 1958, the oldest child of Carl and Jo Ebert. Growing up with a voice-major Mother who performed in multiple stage productions, and spending time with her Father a Director at WMAQ-TV, it is perhaps not surprising that Alison obtained a degree in Communications and Theater, graduating from St. Norbert College in 1980.
After an internship with Lee Philip, Alison followed in her Dad’s footsteps and began her career at Channel 5, first as a freelance stage manager/floor director and then joining the full time staff. She loved her job and took in every possible experience; Cubs Games, Bear Games, the Marathon, and the Chicago Auto Show. Alison also became a fixture in the newsroom.
She had a sense of adventure and curiosity about life away from work as well, which led to travels to more than fifteen countries on four continents, touring Europe, whitewater rapids rafting, and even an encounter with polar bears. As she gained experience at WMAQ-TV, Alison became an Associate Director, a job which played to her strengths: attention to detail, a cool head under pressure and a cutting sense of humor.
That attention to detail also made her an invaluable to the Chicago’s Field Museum where, for more than 20 years, she played a central role as a volunteer helping to catalog the museum’s massive behind-the-scenes collections. She also volunteered her time at several Chicago animal shelters, with a few shelter dogs finding their way home with her.
Alison later became a Director, which challenged her in new ways. She was known by her colleagues as a team player who was always willing to help and who provided calm direction, leadership and humor in the often chaotic world of live news broadcasts. She also earned five Chicago/Midwest Emmy® Awards for her work on live special event coverage, spots news, public affairs specials, live sports specials and individual excellence.
Alison’s small, close-knit family most appreciates her unwavering love and support through their own life adventures. Alison’s death in 2014 marked the end of a nearly continuous 60- year run of Eberts in the newsroom and control rooms of NBC 5.
Carl Ebert
Carl was born on January 31, 1928 in Hammond, Indiana, the only child of German-American parents. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy, at the tail-end of World War II, obtaining certification as a hardhat salvage diver in 1947.
After his military service, Carl attended Columbia College, while working as a page for WMAQ-AM radio. He later transferred to WMAQ-TV and while working there, met and married a beautiful “make-up girl” Loretta “Jo” Ebert. Over the next decade, Carl’s talents grew as the industry grew, and by the early 1960s, he was a Stage Manager and then an Associate Director.
The Ebert family was also growing, and by the 1960s, Carl and Jo were the proud parents of two girls and a boy. Their eldest, Alison, would follow Carl into a career in television. Carl worked on many programs, including Kukla, Fran & Ollie, Today in Chicago, and Sorting It Out. Carl associate directed special programs around the city, too, including a 1970 Leonard Nimoy documentary, If the Mind is Free, working alongside fellow Silver Circle inductee, Roger Miller. Later, Carl became a Director for local newscasts.
Carl also worked on NBC Network coverage of college football games and other sporting events. He often recounted favorite stories from professional golf tournaments, where he spent time with PGA pros like Arnold Palmer. His creative talents and skill set ultimately led him to become a producer of local sports programs, televising high school basketball games, with young Channel 5 sportscaster Greg Gumbel doing play-by-play. Carl continued to produce local sports programs, quite novel in the days before cable television, and for these he won two Chicago Emmy® Awards: for Outstanding Sports Program Series (1974-75) and for Outstanding Local Sport Programming (1977-78). The trophy for the Chicago high school football Prep Bowl at Soldier Field -- whose telecasts he produced and directed for television -- was for a time given in his name.
Away from work, Carl’s creative endeavors include writing and, later in life, painting. He and his wife Jo set an example of life-long learning and creaivity for their children. In 1979, Carl died at the age of 51.
Fahey Flynn
Michigan native Fahey Flynn began his Chicago broadcasting career as an announcer/newsman at CBS radio in 1941 at the Wrigley Building before moving to the television news anchor desk at WBBM-TV in 1953. For the next 15 years, he anchored Channel 2 newscasts.
Originally teamed with weatherman P.J. Hoff, one of Fahey’s first co-anchors at Channel 2 was a young John Drury.
Described by then Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder as “an avuncular Irishman with a jaunty bow tie and a twinkle in his eye,” Flynn moved to Channel 7 in 1968, about the time WBKB-TV was renamed WLS-TV. Paired with Joel Daly, the Flynn-Daly News - later dubbed Eyewitness News - included weatherman John Coleman and Bill Frink on sports. The affable group became the highest-rated evening news team in Chicago for more than a decade, and won an Emmy® Award after their first year on the air together.
At a time when most newscasts featured an austere delivery, Flynn and Daly popularized a mix of bantering segues between news stories in a presentation style that media critics came to call “happy talk” which went on to be widely imitated across the country.
A six-time Chicago Emmy® winner, in 1959 Fahey won the first-ever Chicago Emmy® Award for individual excellence as a newscaster which he won again in 1966 and 1968. He was also part of the team that won a Spot News Emmy® for coverage of the 1979 crash of American Airlines Flight 191 at O’Hare Airport.
He was honored in 1977 with a Governors Award by the Television Academy, as 1980 Man of the Year by the Chicago Variety Clubs, and 1982 Press Veteran of the Year by the Chicago Press Veterans Association. In 1983, Fahey Flynn died at the age of 67.
Fahey is survived by his wife Mary, son Jamie and daughter Kathy. They are unable to travel here for the Silver Circle presentation but extend best wishes to everyone and are delighted that Joel Daly will accept the Silver Circle Award on behalf of the Fahey Flynn family.
Pam Grimes
January 22, 1973 - The U.S. Supreme Court hands down its Roe v. Wade decision, former President Lyndon Johnson dies, and Pam Grimes (then Pam Hildebrand) steps into a TV newsroom for the first time.
Timing and affirmative action helped Pam get her foot in the door at KCRG, the ABC affiliate in her home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She worked her way up from radio announcer to TV weather presenter. That led to positions in reporting, anchoring, and producing newscasts in Waterloo, Phoenix and finally WGN-TV in Chicago.
This fall marks Pam’s 25th year in Chicago television. She was hired as a 9:00 PM news writer and weekend newscast producer in 1990, but was quickly tapped to produce sweeps pieces and special projects including Tom Skilling’s original Ask Tom segments. A decade ago, she was promoted to her current position as Special Projects Producer.
She has been chased by tornadoes, witnessed Barack Obama’s historic presidential run, toured Alaska in winter under Northern lights on a dog sled, and proudly boasts of doing a cartwheel on the roof of the Sears Tower. Her favorite stories are about people who have a real impact, everyday Chicagoans who do extraordinary things.
Pam has won 13 Emmy® Awards, multiple Peter Lisagor Awards, a Media Trailblazer Award from Rainbow PUSH, and now enters Chicago’s prestigious Silver Circle. She’s an officer on the Board of Governors for the Chicago/Midwest Chapter of the Television Academy, and serves on the National Board of Trustees. She believes in high journalistic standards, honoring excellence in television, and helping the next generation of broadcast journalists as a way to repay those who helped her.
Pam is grateful for the tremendous support she receives from her husband and unofficial editor, Bill, children Sam & Madi, her mother, Betty Hildebrand, her late father, Ralph, and three sisters, Sherri, Penny, & Polly. Pam can honestly say in 40-plus years in the broadcast news business she has made amazing friends from coast to coast, has never been bored, and credits hard work and timing for the opportunity and excitement of working in this extraordinary profession.
Richard Isaac
Richard Isaac will tell you that he’s the LAST person he’d expect to be inducted into Chicago’s prestigious Silver Circle alongside people like Harry Caray, Jack Brickhouse, Bill Kurtis, and John Drury. But much of what Chicagoans know about the happenings in their city came through the lens of Richard “Ike” Isaac.
Ike has been a news and sports photographer at WGN-TV since 1971. He was the first black professional in a sea of white men with crew cuts, skinny ties and pocket protectors. Yet, somehow he fit right in.
His parents, who were married 52 years, were from Mississippi and Missouri, but Ike is Chicago born and raised. In his book, if you’re not from Chicago, well, that’s too bad for you. His South Side roots were in Hyde Park where as a youngster he delivered the Chicago American and Chicago Daily News newspapers to the University of Chicago.
In the late 1960s, many of his friends were college-bound, so Ike chose to study filmmaking in Chicago’s city college system. Back then, you had to know someone to get into the film union. Ike had no connections to open that door so instead he became a news photographer.
Ike went on to cover nearly every major news and sports event in Chicago over the next 44 years. Reporters and producers know that when they’re covering news, no matter how hectic the situation, they can always count on Ike to get the best video.
Among Ike’s passions - food and sports. He carried his love for baseball to South Side fields where he coached kids in the art of playing America’s pastime, while also serving as a role model to help shape their young lives. While many see Ike as a guy with a rough exterior, veteran reporter Bob Jordan, who has worked with Ike for nearly four decades, says: “He is really the sweetest, dearest man, who is so caring. I’ve seen him help people on the street. And he never says anything about it. He’s very generous, very kind, very compassionate … that tough exterior doesn’t let many people see it. ”
Paul Meincke
Paul Meincke has been a general assignment reporter for ABC7 Eyewitness News for three decades. The many stories he has covered include - five weeks in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the first Gulf War, the Branch Davidian stand-off in Texas, the arrest of the Unabomber, the 1999 release of three captured U.S. servicemen in Belgrade, the death penalty debate in Illinois, as well as the political corruption trials of Governors Ryan and Blagojevich. He has also done some “boring” stories on Chicago’s oh so predictable weather.
Paul is a 1972 graduate of Augustana College and began his career as a radio play-by-play announcer. He later anchored TV newscasts at WHBF-TV in his hometown of Rock Island, Illinois. It was there that he fell in love with his co-anchor Wendy Ellis. They've been married for 33 years and still talk to each other. They are most proud of their four adult sons - Dan, Zach, Bill and Cody.
Meincke won some awards during his nine years in Rock Island, followed by four years as a reporter at WEWS-TV in Cleveland before coming to Chicago. In 2001, he was recognized with the Richard J. Daley Police Medal of Honor for serving as an intermediary in a hostage situation involving a wounded Chicago police officer. Active with the Boy Scouts, Meincke is a former Scoutmaster of BSA Troop 6 in Des Plaines, and in 2003 was presented with the Silver Beaver Award, the highest award an adult BSA volunteer can receive in recognition of time and effort.
Paul has backpacked the Philmont Scout Ranch five times, white-water canoed the Mountain River in the Northwest Territories, climbed Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2008 and bicycled across the U.S. in the summer of 2012. He would like to do many of these things again, but his body has suggested otherwise.
Writing irreverent rhyme is also one of Paul’s therapeutic pastimes, but family values preclude any further discussion of their content here.
Bob Sirott
After an internship with Lee Philip, Alison followed in her Dad’s footsteps and began her career at Channel 5, first as a freelance stage manager/floor director and then joining the full time staff. She loved her job and took in every possible experience; Cubs Games, Bear Games, the Marathon, and the Chicago Auto Show. Alison also became a fixture in the newsroom.
She had a sense of adventure and curiosity about life away from work as well, which led to travels to more than fifteen countries on four continents, touring Europe, whitewater rapids rafting, and even an encounter with polar bears. As she gained experience at WMAQ-TV, Alison became an Associate Director, a job which played to her strengths: attention to detail, a cool head under pressure and a cutting sense of humor.
That attention to detail also made her an invaluable to the Chicago’s Field Museum where, for more than 20 years, she played a central role as a volunteer helping to catalog the museum’s massive behind-the-scenes collections. She also volunteered her time at several Chicago animal shelters, with a few shelter dogs finding their way home with her.
Alison later became a Director, which challenged her in new ways. She was known by her colleagues as a team player who was always willing to help and who provided calm direction, leadership and humor in the often chaotic world of live news broadcasts. She also earned five Chicago/Midwest Emmy® Awards for her work on live special event coverage, spots news, public affairs specials, live sports specials and individual excellence.
Alison’s small, close-knit family most appreciates her unwavering love and support through their own life adventures. Alison’s death in 2014 marked the end of a nearly continuous 60- year run of Eberts in the newsroom and control rooms of NBC 5.
Howard Sudberry
Veteran broadcaster Howard Sudberry has held a wide variety of positions in a career that has spanned more than 35 years. His experience has included jobs as a disc jockey, voice-over artist, television and radio newscaster, reporter, weathercaster and the position for which he is best known - sportscaster. His career began in radio at station WGLC in Mendota, Illinois, before moving to television jobs in Peoria, Cedar Rapids, Louisville, Cleveland and Chicago.
Howard spent 25 years with WBBM-TV CBS2 in Chicago. During that time, he became well known around Chicagoland for being front and center for some of the biggest sports events and stories in Chicago history including the 1985 Bears Super Bowl Championship, the Chicago Bulls six NBA Championships in the 1990s and the 2005 Chicago White Sox World Series victory.
Howard has hosted shows with Chicago legends Michael Jordan, Mike Ditka, Walter Payton and Phil Jackson. He has covered sports across the nation and around the world including the Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals, The Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500. His awards include Chicago/Midwest Emmy® Awards, the Peter Lisagor Award, and the highest honor in thoroughbred horse racing, The Eclipse Award. He was also voted favorite sports reporter by the Chicago Sun-Times and Today’s Chicago Woman magazine.
Currently, he serves as the Senior Director of marketing and Communications for Arlington International Racecourse.
Howard has been involved in many charities including the Gary Sinise Foundation which benefits veterans, first responders and their families. He has also helped organize a fundraiser at Arlington last year headlined by actor Gary Sinise that raised in excess of $40,000. He is also on the Board of Directors of Meet Chicago Northwest, a convention and visitors bureau.
When he is not working, Howard can be found not far away from work, playing the horses or on the golf course where he continues to chase the dream of shooting even par for a round.