RIVERSIDE-BROOKFIELD Also serving North Riverside $1.00
Vol. 35, No. 7
February 12, 2020
Sign of summer Check out our kids Camp Guide PAGE 12
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Brookfield Zoo CEO announces he’ll retire
Stuart Strahl leaves a lasting imprint on century-old institution By BOB UPHUES Editor
Stuart Strahl, who has served as president and CEO of the Chicago Zoological Society, which operates Brookfield Zoo, for the past 17 years, has announced he’ll retire once the society’s board of directors completes a search for his successor. It’s not clear how long that process could take – when Strahl was hired back in 2003, it came after a search that lasted more than a year – but he recently told the board he didn’t want to enter into another long-term contract. “I have a daughter who lives in Montana … and I have other interests in the field of conservation,” said Strahl in a telephone interview with the Landmark. “We agreed to extend the term of the contract, and we’ll go on a year-byyear basis. It could be a year, it could be two years.” The Chicago Zoological Society’s board has begun its search, said Strahl, and expects to begin receiving responses later this month. Then the interview process will begin. Whoever is hired to replace Strahl will be just the third president and CEO in more than 40 years. Strahl’s predecessor was the legendary George Rabb, who started working at Brookfield Zoo in 1954 and took the reins as director in 1976. Rabb, who had a large impact on the emergence of international conservation and environmental education, strongly influenced Strahl’s desire See STRAHL on page 11
ALEX ROGALS/Staff Photographer
FULL LIFE: Longtime Riverside resident Donald Farnham was co-founder of what has become known as Riverside TV.
‘Father of Riverside TV’ dies at 94 Emmy winner, Marine Corps vet pulled back veil on village government By BOB UPHUES Editor
Donald R. Farnham Sr., a two-time Emmy Award-winning TV cameraman whose dogged efforts in the 1990s to open up Riverside government resulted in the creation of a model government-funded cable TV operation,
died Feb. 9, 2020 at the age of 94. “He and Doc [Dr. Robert] Novak were the first guys to invade a village board meeting with a camera,” said Steve Wojcik, Farnham’s former colleague on the Riverside TV Commission for a decade. “They forged the way for Riverside TV.” In the mid-1990s, the Riverside Ca-
ble Commission was just a fledgling operation, having won grudging support by village government, which had been collecting cable TV franchise fees of about $20,000 a year. The money was supposed to be earmarked for the formation of a local See FARNHAM on page 10
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