Obituaries Alumni 1934 Anastasia Esposito, phc, of Lemont, July 7. 1937 Wilson Lacey, phc, of Libertyville, July 17. A native of Grand Ridge, Lacey served in the U.S. Army Medical Administrative Corps during World War II, where he met his wife, Mary McSweeney. The couple settled in Mundelein, where they reared five children. While there, Lacey purchased the Wauconda Pharmacy, renaming it Lacy Drugs. He was active in the Wauconda Chamber of Commerce, Lions Club, and American Legion. In 1977, he retired from practicing pharmacy. A Cubs fan, Lacey also enjoyed playing the violin, traveling, and playing golf, poker, and bridge. 1947 Raymond Parks, bs, of Mesa, Arizona, November 1, 2011. During his career, Parks was employed at Harris Pharmacy in Arlington Heights. 1948 Edmund Ewald Kietzer, Jr., bs, of Burlington, Wisconsin, July 25. A Chicago native, Kietzer was a World War II Veteran. For 30 years, he worked at Keeler Pharmacy in Chicago. He was a member of Kappa Psi. Clarence Charles Lev, bs, of Skokie, December 22, 2011. In 1940, Lev began his career as an elevator operator at Michael Reese Hospital, working his way through pharmacy school. He eventually became director of pharmacy at Michael Reese in 1953, a position he held for 33 years until he retired in 1986. During that period, he witnessed the growth of that hospital into a world-renowned medical center and the largest teaching hospital in Chicago. From the very beginning of his career, Lev devoted himself to public service for the underserved. He was a consultant to the Drexel Home, which housed and cared for the Jewish elderly, for more than 30 years. He also worked with other members of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, namely Mount Sinai Hospital, the Orthodox Jewish Home, Park View Home, and Rest Haven Hospital. Lev was also active in pharmacy professional organizations, serving on the boards of directors for the Illinois Pharmaceutical Association, the Illinois Academy of Preceptors in Pharmacy, and the Illinois Pharmaceutical Services Foundation; as a founding member and on the board of directors for the Illinois Council of Hospital Pharmacists; on the executive committee for the Northern Illinois Society of Hospital Pharmacists; the Illinois Hospital
Association; as vice president of the Heath Careers Council; and as president of the Illinois Society of Hospital Pharmacists. Always one who liked to speak, Lev organized and served as the chairman of the speakers bureau for the ISHP and gave numerous talks about drugs and pharmacy to the PTA, local churches, and community organizations and was a guest on various radio shows. He served on the advisory committee to several pharmaceutical companies, among them being Upjohn, Hoffman La Roche, and Merrell Dow. He was one of the first hospital pharmacists on the state board of pharmacy appointed by the governor. Lev organized and served as the first chairman of the Drug Purchasing Committee of the Consortium of Jewish Hospitals, which is now a healthcare alliance known as Premier, the nation’s largest pharmaceutical buying group. He served on the committee that first organized the pharmacy purchasing committee of the Chicago Hospital Council. In 1968, Lev was named Illinois Hospital Pharmacist of the Year. In 1975, the Hungarian government invited Lev to evaluate their pharmaceutical companies and products.
Drug Discovery. For many years, he served as the book review editor for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Cannon’s research interests included synthetic organic chemistry, chemical pharmacology, heterocyclic chemistry, structureactivity relationships, and the stereochemistry of nerve hormones and of nerve hormone receptors.
1951 Joseph G. Cannon, bs, ms ’53, phd ’57, December 17, 2011. Born in Decatur in 1926, he served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946. Cannon joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy in 1956. He took a position the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy in 1962, where he eventually became professor of medicinal chemistry. While at Iowa, Cannon was named Dale E. Wurster Research Fellow in 1986, and, in 1994, he received the Iowa Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. Cannon was awarded the title of professor emeritus in 1996. In 1997, he was named recipient of the Smissman Bristol Myers Squibb Award in Medicinal Chemistry. Cannon also participated in the founding of the Residential School on Medicinal Chemistry that is presented annually at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He also taught there for many years. This program is designed for chemists and biologists interested in broadening their understanding of the fundamental principles of small-molecule drug-discovery research and preclinical development. Outside the academic setting, Cannon taught an American Chemical Society short course on pharmacology for chemists, which he created and offered repeatedly for approximately 27 years. As a result, Cannon was honored with an ACS Outstanding Teacher Award in 2006. He served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Chirality, Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry, the Indian Journal of Heterocyclic Chemistry, and the sixth edition of Burger’s Medicinal Chemistry and
1962 Joseph Cipriano, bs, of Mount Prospect, November 5, 2011. His brother, Richard, bs ’60, and son Michael, bs ’83, are fellow COP alumni.
1952 Wanda Cooke, bs, of Phoenix, Arizona, January 14, 2010. During her career, she had served as pharmacy director at Thunderbird Samaritan Hospital in Glendale, Arizona. Alfred W. Rakebrand, bs, of Lombard, November 25, 2011. He had previously worked as president and coowner of Nosek Apothecary in Westchester. 1960 Michael J. Middleton, bs, of Libertyville, February 2012. During his career, he had worked at Aurora Pharmacy in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Daniel Bednarz, bs, of Chicago, June 12. Matthew Kutza, Jr., bs, of Chicago, February 27, 2007. 1968 Glenn R. Vann, bs, of La Grange, June 2012. Vann had spent much of his career working as a pharmacist at Vann’s Family Pharmacy in his hometown. 1970
Thomas Mills, bs, of Rockford, May 16. A Rockford native, Mills was a member of Kappa Psi and followed in his father’s footsteps with his career choice. After completing his degree at UIC, Mills worked briefly in suburban Chicago, where he met his wife, Billie Diane Fox, whom he married on September 15, 1972. The following year, the couple moved to Rockford, where Mills managed the pharmacy at Union Hall in Rockford and Loves Park. He eventually opened his own pharmacy, Val-U-Mart, in Logli Supermarket. He also worked at Crusader UIC Pharmacist | Winter 2013 | pharmalumni.uic.edu | 57