A Homecoming and a Farewell

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Call 1-800-Tribune Tuesday, May 29, 2018 Breaking news at chicagotribune.com Nonprofit says CPS ads not political Progress Chicago has close ties to Emanuel, focuses on South Side By Bill Ruthhart Chicago Tribune A new nonprofit organiza- tion is airing radio and TV ads featuring Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson emphasizing academic improvement at the embattled district, with scenes of her teaching in a classroom, talking about her homegrown Chicago story and concluding, “I’m proud of the progress we’ve made.” The 30-second television spot that has been airing on cable for the last two weeks zeros in on Stanford University and University of Chicago stud- ies on test scores and gradua- tion rates that, as Jackson puts it in the ad, show CPS is “becoming a national leader in BRIAN CASSELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE PHOTOS academic improvement, with A U.S. Navy Ceremonial Guard folds the flag above the casket of Walter Howard Backman during his burial service Monday in Batavia. more kids than ever graduating and going to college.” The group behind the ad, Progress Chicago, is emerging at a time when Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bid for a third term A HOMECOMING against a field of nine challeng- ers is ratcheting up. The nonprofit is bankrolled by three unions that are major contrib- utors to the mayor’s campaign AND A FAREWELL and Emanuel’s No. 1 campaign donor and close confidant More than 76 years after Pearl Harbor, sailor finally laid to rest Michael Sacks, the wealthy CEO of investment firm GCM By Denise Crosby | The Beacon-News Grosvenor. Those four donors, in recent weeks alone, have He died a war hero’s death. given more than $1 million to the mayor’s campaign fund, And more than 76 years later, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter Howard Backman finally got the homecoming — and goodbye — he records show. deserved, as a grateful community turned out by the hundreds on Memorial Dayto see this young sailor killed at Pearl Harbor laid to rest. Progress Chicago, however, says it isn’t a political organiza- None of the four generations of Backman’s family who came from seven states to pay their respects Monday afternoon — first at a tion advocating on behalf of prayer service at Healy Chapel in Aurora and then at River Hills Cemetery in Batavia — personally knew the young radioman, one of 429 any particular candidate or campaign cause and that it’s sailors to go down on the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941. just seeking to deliver a mes- sage that CPS is improving. Backman, 22, died before Because the nonprofit, whose any of these surviving nieces, “My mother board members also have close nephews or second cousins would have been ties to Emanuel, is considered were ever born. But that didn’t an issue advocacy group, it diminish their emotions as the so happy to know does not have to adhere to rules handsome young sailor they that apply to traditional politi- knew mostly from family sto- that he finally got cal action committees in the ries and photos was honored run-up to the February 2019 with a full military funeral to come home.” city election. presided over by Rear Adm. — Carolyn Sellers, niece of Progress Chicago does not Carol Lynch and complete Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class immediately have to disclose with seven-member honor de- Walter Howard Backman its donors or how much they tail and 21-gun salute. give. It does not have to share Nor did it take away from how and with whom it spends their gratitude that people of its money. And its nonprofit all ages and walks of life — Honolulu in a plot marked as status cleared the way for dressed in everything from “the Unknowns of the USS Jackson to appear in the ads military and police uniforms to Oklahoma.” without violating a district suits and ties to picnic attire — A Cub Scout holds a photo of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Walter In 2015, the Defense POW/ policy that prohibits employ- turned out for the ceremony. Howard Backman during a prayer service Monday in Aurora. MIA Accounting Agency part- ees from using their job titles in “This has just been amaz- nered with the Department of political activity. ing,” said Sandy Pickens of honored to be part of it.” dentified remains had been Veterans Affairs to exhume all Even though it has ramped Oswego, whose late husband, Backman was one of the commingled, buried in a mass unknown remains from this up during the campaign sea- Walter, was a great-nephew to more than 400 sailors aboard grave at the National Memorial son, the group says its mission the fallen sailor. “I feel so the USS Oklahoma whose uni- Cemetery of the Pacific in Turn to Burial, Page 3 Turn to Ads, Page 7 Starbucks calls Researchers target high risk attention to training trend for Alzheimer’s among Latinos About 175,000 employees 832% increase by 2060 from all 8,000 Starbucks stores will gather Tuesday for uncon- is troubling trend scious bias training, an increas- GENE J. PUSKAR/AP experts aim to change ingly popular initiative, in an effort by the coffee giant to turn a Unconscious bias training at- By Ese Olumhense public relations mess into a tempts to make people aware of Chicago Tribune teachable moment. their automatic assumptions “All eyes are on Starbucks, and about certain groups. Salvador Campos had his first the company has a really unique But there are drawbacks, as stroke in February 1994, weeks opportunity to show other com- research has found some ap- ahead of his 49th birthday. panies how to do this well,” said proaches to be ineffective. The event left the father of Erin Thomas, who leads the “All employees have a role in three not only unable to move but Chicago office of Paradigm, a being welcoming, but it’s not fair unable to remember the names of diversity and inclusion strategy to put all of the corporate loved ones, including his parents. consulting firm. responsibility of inclusion on Faces in family photographs Starbucks announced the them when they’re just trying to were suddenly unfamiliar too. So training as it became the target of serve people a nice cup of were addresses, even his own. protests over the arrest of two coffee,” Thomas said. But Campos’ mobility and black men at one of its stores in memory gradually returned. All ABEL URIBE/CHICAGO TRIBUNE Philadelphia. ■ Complete story in Business appeared normal until Campos, Martha Campos has been taking care of her husband, Salvador who immigrated to the U.S. from Campos, who has had two strokes and has Alzheimer’s disease. Mexico in the 1970s, had another stroke in 2014, this time at work. disease. Now 73, he is the third of mer’s Association. By 2025, an “ ‘Check on Dad,’ ” Martha his parents’ six children with the estimated 40,000 others are ex- Tom Skilling’s forecast High 90 Low 67 Campos, his wife, remembers her progressive brain disease. There pected to develop the condition, Chicago Weather Center: Complete forecast on back page of A+E daughter telling her after that is no cure. a more than 18 percent increase stroke. “ ‘He’s walking strange Here in Illinois, 220,000 peo- in this state alone. and acting weird.’ ” ple are living with Alzheimer’s And though diagnoses of Alz- $2.50 city and suburbs, $3.00 elsewhere He was never really the same disease, which gradually, irre- heimer’s are expected to increase 170th year No. 149 © Chicago Tribune after that day, and a year ago, he versibly degrades cognitive func- was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s tions, according to the Alzhei- Turn to Alzheimer’s, Page 6 Chicago Tribune | Section 1 | Tuesday, May 29, 2018 3 Sailor killed in ’41 finally laid to rest Burial, from Page 1 ship and, by using DNA from family members, be- gan the lengthy anthropo- logical inventory of the 13,000 skeletal elements. Approximately 130 remains of the 429 on board have been identified, and the Navy is hoping that by 2020 all of them will be given the burials they deserve, officials say. Last August, members of the Backman family were notified that Walter’s remains had been identified, and in November his niece and nephew met with Navy officials to begin planning the burial service. The family could have chosen the Punchbowl in Hawaii or Arlington Na- tional Cemetery, niece Car- olyn Sellers said. But they chose Batavia to make it more convenient for surviving relatives to visit and because he will be buried near his parents, August and Beatrice Backman. Sellers, the daughter of Backman’s youngest sister, became particularly emo- tional after the ceremony as she tried to describe what BRIAN CASSELLA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE PHOTOS this day would have meant A veteran salutes the casket of Walter Backman, who was killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, during a prayer service at Healy Chapel in Aurora. to her mother, Charlene, who provided the DNA they had limited stories of respect, and I want them swab that allowed the Navy about Backman growing up, to grow up with an appreci- to identify her brother’s but he’d always been de- ation for those who served remains. She died in 2015. scribed as kind, fun-loving and who sacrificed for all of “My mother would have and hardworking, said us.” been so happy to know that nephew Walter Pickens, Marty Callahan, a Batavia he finally got to come who was named for his alderman and member of home,” Sellers said, her fallen uncle and spoke at the Fox Valley Patriotic Or- voice choking with emo- both the prayer service and ganization, likewise tion.

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