2006 Distinguished Hall of Honor Recipients

Max Baratz - Class of 1952
Max Baratz served 42 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. He received two Distinguished Service Medals, our nation’s highest service medal. He also received a Legion of Merit for service during Operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. He retired as a Major General from Active army service in the Pentagon and completed his career as the Chief, Army Reserve, the highest position in the Reserve.

During his career he projected his personal interest in soldiers and their families by initiating such actions as special pay for reserve component physicians; support to mobilized college students; changes in the soldiers and sailors relief act; and support for changes and upgrade of Veterans Administration benefits for soldiers participating in Operation Desert Shield/Storm.

John Drury - Class of 1945
John Drury devoted more than 50 years to broadcast journalism. He anchored news programs for CBS, WGN-TV and ABC 7. He also reported, investigated, researched and conducted interviews for countless stories. He interviews John F. and Robert Kennedy, Frank Capra and Richard Nixon. He also moderated presidential debates and took on Chicago City Hall over the way public money was used at city festivals and won.

During his career, Drury earned four Emmys and the Distinguished Journalism Award form the Better Government Association. He has been inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and the Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Ruth VanSickle Ford - Class of 1915
As a young wife and mother in Aurora, Ruth VanSickle Ford ’15 studied, painted and worked as a commercial illustrator. Recognition came when, in 1921, her work was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1930 Ruth began teaching at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Later, during the Great Depression, she purchased the school with money borrowed from friends. Some of her more famous students include Bill Mauldin, Pulitizer prize winning political cartoonist, and Dick Locher, author and illustrator of the Dick Tracy comic strip.

Ford exhibited her work widely, garnering numerous awards, including prestigious gold and silver medals. Her watercolors and oils are to be found in many museums and private collections, including the Smithsonian Institution. Ford died in 1989, leaving as a legacy the hundreds of artists across the nation whom she trained, and a large body of work. Her paintings can be found at the Aurora Public Library, Aurora University and the Old Second National Bank of Aurora.

Eric Halfvarson - Class of 1970
Eric Halfvarson sings regularly with the world’s most prestigious opera companies and symphony orchestras. His 2005-06 season included appearances in productions in New York, London, Madrid, Torino and Washington, D.C. He also appears as a guest lecturer and master class teacher in various professional apprentice organizations attached to major opera houses and at Indian University.

In 1993 he was designated “Artist of the Year” by the Washington Opera. In 2002 Halfvarson was inducted into the Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame. Many Aurorans will remember Halfvarson performing in the Aurora Festival Chorus with his father, Sten, as conductor or his performances of the “Messiah” with the Waubonsee District Chorus conducted by his mother, Lucille.

H. William (Bill) Habermeyer Jr. - Class of 1960
Nuclear energy is the thread that ties together the seemingly diverse careers of Bill Habermeyer ’60. His first career was with the Navy, primarily in the submarine service, although he also served as commandant of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy. Along the way to being selected for the rank of rear admiral, Habermeyer was earned seven Legions of Merit, two Navy Commendation Medals and various other service and campaign awards.

Upon retirement he went to work for a power company, Progress Energy Florida, and is now its president and chief executive officer. Habermeyer also is chair of the Pinellas Education Foundation and serves as a director/trustee of the Suncoast Boys and Girls Clubs, the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg, Eckerd College and the Council for educational Change. He also has taken leadership positions with several business and fine arts organizations.

Arthur Lage, DVM, DACVIM - Class of 1961
After building up the largest private veterinarian practice on the Atlantic Coast, Dr. Arthur Lage ’61 joined the faculty at Harvard. Today, he is an associate professor of Surgery and of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In addition, Lage is director of Harvard’s Center of Animal Resources and Comparative Medicine, the Office of Animal Resources, and the Division of Surgery.

One of his innovations at Harvard is the “One Medicine” approach. He has brought together veterinarians, PhDs and surgeons to share their expertise. One result is the adaptation of a device veterinarians use in surgery for pediatric surgery. Lage has published 15 book chapters on clinical nephrology and urology. He also has 22 national/international refereed original publications in the fields of human, veterinary and comparative medicine. Lage also serves as the course director for Principles of Vertebrate Surgery at Harvard University and Renal Pathophysiology at Tufts University.

Wendell Minor - Class of 1962
Wendell Minor may be best known as an award-winning book illustrator and cover artist, but West Aurora High School students also know him as a muralist. His 24-by-9-foot mural of a young Abraham Lincoln reading is the first thing students see when they enter the school lobby. The former editor-in-chief of West High’s yearbook has gone on to a most prolific career. His cover illustrations have enhanced more than 2,000 works, including the covers of bestsellers by Ray Bradbury, Toni Morrison, Garrison Keillor, David McCullough, Pat Conroy, Fannie Flagg, Harper Lee, James Michener and Larry McMurty.

Minor is the author and illustrator of numerous award-winning children's picture books, some of which have been published internationally. His “Yankee Doodle America: The Spirit of 1776 from A to Z” was published in April. Minor is a charter inductee in the Fox Valley Arts Hall of Fame.

Paul Ormond - Class of 1967
Paul Ormond is the founder of the company that is now known as Manor Care, Inc., the largest provider of long-term care services in the nation. The company operates skilled nursing centers, rehabilitation facilities, hospitals, home care and hospice businesses in 32 states. It has approximately 60,000 employees and generates about $3.5 billion in annual revenues. This year Fortune Magazine selected Manor Care, Inc., as one of America’s Most Admired Companies, giving it a number-one ranking for quality of management in the health care industry.

Ormond has used this platform to become a national leader and advocate for the elderly. He has advised three U.S. presidents as well as numerous members of Congress and state elected leaders on health care policy. Ormond also has served several times a chairman of a regional Alzheimer’s Disease Association fundraising campaign. He was recently named a member of the Board of Advisors for the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and is currently a member of the University of Toledo College of Business' Fundraising Steering Committee.

Tom Skilling - Class of 1970
Tom Skilling, chief meteorologist for WGN-TV News at Noon and News at Nine and the mastermind of the Chicago Tribune weather page, is known as "a weatherman's weatherman" by many in the field for his passionate, state-of-the-art and in-depth weather reporting. He has been honored by the National Weather Service for holding free tornado and severe weather seminars each spring at the Fermilab National Accelerator complex in Batavia. His clout attracts America's top meteorologists and researchers, while his WGN Superstation visibility draws thousands from all over the Midwest.

His most recent honor is the IBA Best Weather Show of 2004, as well as 2003 Silver Dome Award for Best Television Weathercast. Skilling's documentary work includes Emmy-Award-winning "The Sears Tower Versus Mother Nature." Skilling's award-winning tornado documentary, "It Sounded Like a Freight Train," and his "When Lightning Strikes" have been widely distributed for use in educational and public awareness efforts.

Robert Taggart - Class of 1961
Robert Taggart was a Stanford University graduate student in the late 1960s when he and colleague James Janky developed the first dish receiver that could receive television from satellites. Later, in 1979, Taggart founded Chaparral Communications in his garage to produce satellite dishes and other receiver components for this emerging market. Today, this company is a leading innovator and producer of satellite television products that are used in virtually every country in the world that receives satellite signals.

Taggart's company has produced more than 30,000 satellite dish receivers for the Edusat program in Mexico. The lack of sufficient teachers has created the need to develop educational programs that are transmitted visa satellite to primary and secondary children in remote areas. Taggart serves on the advisory boards for the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University, the School of Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Northwestern University.