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Chicago Zoological Society CEO keeps Brookfield Zoo ahead of the pack. P54
Illustration by Barry Blitt
Glencoe fashion show draws a crowd. P36
SPORTS
New Trier volleyball player Andrew Sommer has upped his game P44
No. 133 | A JWC Media publication
NEWS
Park in Hubbard Woods to be revamped
H
ubbard Woods Park will receive a significant facelift when the Winnetka Park District begins its $2 million renovation of the park in August, which will include a new playground and a pavilion. On April 9, the Village Council voted 4-1 in favor of the park’s revamp. Over the past 18 months the Park District worked with the Village and community groups to develop plans to improve Hubbard Woods, a 1 1/2 acre park located on Green Bay Road near the train station. The Park District plans include replacing the existing shelter and gazebo with a new pavilion that will include bathroom facilities, a new playground with a splash pad, improved pedestrian pathways and enhanced landscaping. Scott Freres of the architectural and design firm The Lakota Group maintained that after two years developing the project he felt confident that the Park DisContinues on page 12
When Bob met Sally They were students together in grade school — and then dedicated their lives to teaching BY DAVID SWEET
M
any years ago in a land far from Lake Forest, Bob Bullard and Sally Weissent attended grade school together. They also gathered at the same church, the Union Congregational Church in East Walpole, Mass. As time went by, Sally watched Bob — a strong-armed right-hander — pitch baseball games on the same Little League and high school teams as her brother, Sandy, who would become a star pitcher at Harvard University. And back at church, they connected through their senior high fellowship group. Bob moved on to Lake Forest College and Sally (two years his junior) attended Lake Erie College in Gainesville, Ohio. During college, they started dating. After graduation, Sally conducted graduate work at National Louis University. In 1970, they were married. The next year, armed with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, Bob was hired as chair of the history department and taught courses in American history and Western Civilization
Bob and Sally Bullard have worked at Lake Forest Country Day School since the 1970s. They will leave in June and move to Cape Cod. Photography by Joel Lerner
at Lake Forest Country Day School, a not-so-long walk from his college dormitories. After five years at a public school, Sally — whose dream since childhood had been to be a teacher — joined him at LFCDS during the nation’s bicentennial. Fast forward almost 40 years.
Sally and Bob are winding up an unparalleled career as teachers and administrators at the independent school. No couple has enjoyed a longer tenure at the brick institution between Western Avenue and Green Bay Road. No teacher has served longer than Bob.
Think they’ll miss anything? “The daily interaction with kids and colleagues – no question,” begins Bob, sitting next to Sally during lunch at Miramar in Highwood. “It’s our second family.” “The people and the intellectual stimulation,” notes Sally.
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“Those ‘aha’ moments when a child gets it. Those moments lend great inspiration to one’s life.” To get a sense of the last time a Bullard did not teach at LFCDS, the west campus of Lake Forest High School was but a dream. The movie “Ordinary People” (in which Bob and Sally’s daughter Katie played a role as a trick-or-treater in the Halloween scene) was a decade away. The tools of the modern student — such as laptops — had not been invented. They’ve seen a few changes since they first lived in faculty housing on the south end of the school’s property. Not only have the woods by that house been cleared to create a baseball field and an outdoor laboratory, but a glance north reveals a structure twice as big as the school Bob walked into during the Nixon Administration. But the biggest change, both agree, is the diversity of the school community today. “I feel that more people today come not necessarily because of the traditions and the overall excellence of the curriculum but because of the sound mission of the school,” says Sally, who notes that all programs — especially the fine arts, instrumental and choral ones — have improved immensely during her tenure. Adds Bob, who founded the admissions office in 1975, “I always worried how comfortable Continues on page 12
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