Mitch Dudek

3 days ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Mitch Dudek

It can be hard to wrap your head around the influence Gary Deeb had on the media industry — locally and nationally — when he was a columnist in Chicago from 1973 to 1983. Newspapers, radio and network television reigned supreme prior to the rise of cable TV and the advent of the internet. And Mr. Deeb offered readers something novel. He lifted the industry’s veil and showed readers the inner workings of the industry, introduced its executives and gatekeepers and pointed out their blunders.

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Mitch Dudek

Wonder boy. Whiz kid. Prodigy. Genius. The nation’s top physicists hadn’t seen the likes of Dick Garwin before. When he was 23 and an assistant physics instructor at the University of Chicago, Mr. Garwin spent the first of his several summers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where he was granted access to the nation’s nuclear secrets — including the first-generation fission-based atomic weapons developed there just years earlier.

1 week ago | wbez.org | Mitch Dudek

Before Andy Austin became a top courtroom sketch artist in Chicago, she had to overcome an artistic crisis. She’d grown weary of fruit. Apples and oranges, to be exact. Ms. Austin was a stay-at-home mom who’d studied art before moving from Boston to Chicago for her husband’s job, and she was looking for more exciting subjects to sketch than the produce that sat on her dining-room table. Her kids weren’t so little anymore. So she started roaming Chicago in search of subjects to draw.

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Mitch Dudek

Michael “Chicago Mike” Sumler, who grew up on the Side Side and worked and traveled with the band Kool & the Gang, died May 25 following a car accident in suburban Atlanta. Kool & the Gang posted of his passing on Facebook: “We’re deeply saddened to hear about the passing of our longtime wardrobe valet, Mike Sumler. Mike worked alongside Kool & the Gang from 2000-2015, making sure the guys looked their best on stage every night.

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Mitch Dudek

Before Andy Austin became a top courtroom sketch artist in Chicago, she had to overcome an artistic crisis. She’d grown weary of fruit. Apples and oranges, to be exact. Ms. Austin was a stay-at-home mom who’d studied art before moving from Boston to Chicago for her husband’s job, and she was looking for more exciting subjects to sketch than the produce that sat on her dining-room table. Her kids weren’t so little anymore. So she started roaming Chicago in search of subjects to draw.