Bill McLean

Moving Off The Mat

A REFEREE GRABS a wrestler’s right hand and raises it. A round of applause rings out in the arena, giving the victor his immediate, audible “medal.” “There aren’t many things better than that in wrestling,” says Bennett Duggan, a 2021 Lake Forest High School graduate who experienced the raised hand 33 times in 35 matches

With Equal Pleasure

As a teen living in Winnetka, Ryan O’Donnell practically pulled a hamstring muscle each time his mother/cooking instructor, Beth, started to welcome eight cooking students into the O’Donnell household for a French culinary class. “I made sure I was out of there before Mom began teaching,” a chuckling O’Donnell recalls. “When she taught, I golfed.”

Family Flanagan

A North Shore homeowner seeks to sell and move to the city. Another sets out to pull up stakes in Chicago and relocate to, say, Winnetka. An ideal first step for each would be to contact The Flanagan Group, a concierge-level service @properties outfit based in Winnetka. Brokers Annie and Maddie Flanagan—Annie is Maddie’s

Sailing Through Life

THE MOST INTERESTING MAN in Lake Forest has to be Robert Biddle V—and not just because the highly competitive 48-year-old father of four whacks two-handed forehands and two-handed backhands in tennis en route to championships, and is quick to tell befuddled opponents at the Lake Forest Club, “I’ll tell you after the match,” whenever

Hear, Hear

The stack of Chris Hrabe’s notes for one of his early New Trier High School radio broadcasts on WNTH neared the height of Mont Blanc. The Wilmette native was uber-prepared to talk about anything during his school’s girls’ basketball game against Fenwick High School in a state semifinal 20 years ago. “I’ve always loved

Community Strong

Brian Wallach was late for the first date with his future wife, Sandra Abrevaya. A good hour late. At the time, both were working for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign in New Hampshire—Wallach, as political director, and Abrevaya, as communications director. Fielding important phone calls, including one with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, was

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Bill McLean

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