Dennis Wheeler, Lincoln-Way graduate, Class of 1957, and retired editor of the Star newspapers, as a guest of the Lincoln-Way Central journalism class, was doing the answering to all the questions asked to him by Central students.
"Dennis was the first sports writer for the first student newspaper at Lincoln-Way, the Lincoln-Way LOG. The students are working to put together a special "Throw Back" edition of the Lincoln-Way LOG in our February edition of the Knight Times. Mr. Wheeler was invited to speak to the class to have the students learn more about what Lincoln-Way was like when it was started," said Stefanie Pehr, English teacher and teacher sponsor of the Knight Times.
Wheeler told the students he was asked to write sport stories for the new school paper because of the experience he had writing sport stories for the Mokena News Bulletin at age 14.
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"Plus, my mother insisted I take typing. It was the early years of IBM typewriters, he said with a smile.
Wheeler said he played football, basketball and baseball for the Knights.
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"There was no journalism class. All the columns of the newspaper were left column justified. We had to type it twice, and get it right," he added.
The Knight Times journalism students who participated in the interview were: Abbey Bobzin, editor-in-chief, Ally Miller, Sean Bayard, Nicole Bell, Emily Brown, Cory Carrasco, Dan Hipp, James Jackson, Laura Lebeau, Jillian Wisniewski, Mia Zarlengo, Logan McKee and Rebecca Kinnan.
"Lincoln-Way tried to get kids involved in activities, clubs and athletics. They truly wanted kids involved in their school. They have been doing this from the very beginning," Wheeler told the students.
