Alumni Update, Obituaries Allison Hantschel Alumni Update, Obituaries Allison Hantschel

Anthony Shadid 1968 - 2012

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Photo by Peter Barreras

Anthony Shadid, Senior Middle East correspondent for the New York Times has died in Syria. Tony was a alum of The Daily Cardinal. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, The Times has nominated him and his colleagues for a third as part of their Arab Spring reporting team this year.

Anthony Sansone, president of The Daily Cardinal Alumni Association, issued the following statement:

Anthony Shadid was what we wanted to be; what we want journalists to be: resourceful in getting the story and dedicated to seeking the truth. Anthony was a gifted writer and an incredibly resourceful reporter.

When honored for the second time at the DCAA's 2005 Awards Dinner for his first Pulitzer Prize, he said that working at the Daily Cardinal was the hardest job he ever had. This was after being shot in Rumullah and covering the Iraq War.

He always made time for the Cardinal and its staff whenever he could, whenever he was in town or whenever he could take a call or reply to an email. He loved talking to the students. He loved journalism. He loved the Cardinal.

Looking to the Cardinal's 120th Anniversary in April, he wrote to the DCAA:  "I can't believe I'm missing the 120th anniversary. I'll have to make sure to be there for the 125th. Good luck. I'll be with you all in spirit."

Yes, he will.

He is one of us. He was the best of us. We loved him. And we will miss him.

Fellow Cardinal alum Paul Norton posted:

Here's an Anthony comment we can all treasure: "The Cardinal days seem like so long ago, but they really were the place we all became who we are."

Tony's new book will be out next month, House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East.  According to the book’s blurb:

“Last spring, when Tony—one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya as the region erupted—was freed, he went home. Not to Boston, Beirut, or Oklahoma where he was raised by his Lebanese-American family, but to an ancient estate built by his great-grandfather, a place filled with memories of a lost era when the Middle East was a world of grace, grandeur, and unexpected departures.

"For two years previous, Shadid had worked to reconstruct the house and restore his spirit after both had weathered war. Now the author of the award-winning Night Draws Near (National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize) tells the story of the house’s re-creation, revealing its mysteries and recovering the lives that have passed through it. Shadid juxtaposes past and present as he traces the house’s renewal along with his family’s flight from Lebanon and resettlement in America.

"House of Stone is an unforgettable memoir of the world’s most volatile landscape and the universal yearning for home.”

The DCAA and the University of Wisconsin Foundation will be making an announcement about a scholarship in Anthony Shadid's memory in the next few weeks.

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Alumni News

Allison Hantschel Sansone is organizing the 120th anniversary gala for Cardinal alums. One of the original board members of DCAA, she has experience organizing previous reunions but she’s really outdone herself with plans for 2012.  Allison was Cardinal Editor-in-Chief in the fall of 1994 and Arts Editor in 1995-96, after the shutdown. She worked steadfastly on payables and receivables while the paper was not publishing. She is a ten-year veteran of the newspaper business. She publishes First Draft, a journalism and politics blog, with her partners Adrastos, Jude and Scout. She is the author of It Doesn’t End With Us: The Story of the Daily Cardinal (2008, Heritage Books) and Chicago’s Historic Irish Pubs (with Mike Danahey) (2011, Arcadia Books). She also edited the anthology Special Plans: The Blogs on Douglas Feith and the Faulty Intelligence That Led to War (2005, William, James & Co.). Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Daily Southtown, Sirens Magazine, and Alternet. She lives in Chicago with her husband, three pet ferrets, and approximately 60 tons of books.

Kayla Torgerson was a reporter, photographer and marketing specialist at the Cardinal from 2009-2011. She is currently an American marketing specialist for an in-bound travel agency based in a suburb of New Delhi, India. The company, Discovery Journeys India, focuses on unique and personalized travel experiences. We do everything from spiritual journeys to active adventure holidays. She reports: “I've been in India for just over two months and so far it has been absolutely incredible! I'm traveling for the company almost every other weekend, and when I'm not traveling I have the opportunity to explore Delhi and my suburb, Gurgaon. I love exploring old markets, meeting new people, wandering into temples, and sampling the wide array of street food. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to work abroad and travel at the same time. India is an amazing country - the colors, the people, the sounds, and the smells are all overwhelming, but wonderful. India has tested my patience and strength in many ways, but those challenges have helped me learn many things about myself and about the world around me. Right now I can't imagine being anywhere else.” 

Todd Stevens was on the Cardinal from 2008-2011 as a film reviewer, co-editor of opinion, managing editor and arts editor. He is currently in AmeriCorps with the Community Technology Empowerment Project in the Twin Cities, teaching computer classes for the program at community centers in Saint Paul Public Housing sites. “I am working on applications for law school, and providing a quality institution is kind and/or foolish enough to accept me I will be enrolling next fall. I am also working on a blog about television criticism with follow Cardinal alum (and former 2009 arts editor) Kevin Slane. dvroverflow.tumblr.com.

Michael Clarence Chatt was on the Cardinal forty years ago and has spent his career making the world better for children. A retired social worker, he specialized in older special-needs children; about 100 children were adopted as a result of his efforts in writing social histories and court reports. That is specialty journalism with a great cause. Earlier, he was a VISTA volunteer in Harlem, teaching children.

Marcie Harrison was Assistant Managing Editor on the Cardinal in the mid-1960s and is a DCAA board member. She owns The Harrison Group, a Chicago public relations agency with a strong concentration in healthcare, food service and small business development. Marcie writes: “I learned something while working on the Cardinal that has stayed with me and that is a respect for deadlines. This is a life skill that has served me well.  When I have projects due for clients, they are always delivered on time. And I have seen how much clients appreciate that.”

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