OK, so there are 52 weeks in a year, right? RedEye has published about five cover stories a week over ten years-give or take. That's like 18,250 stories on the front page over the last decade, if you're being conservative.
Some of those front pages have been news stories, or sports stories, or investigations, or celebrity interviews. Some simply have been funny looks at the weird trends that happened to catch our eye (and yours). The baby food diet, anyone?
But many of those stories were about interesting Chicagoans who have done extraordinary or unusual things with their lives. These are the people you ride the train with each morning, the people whose name you might not recognize at first, but the people whose stories are too damn compelling to tell without a big, fat headline. It's probably possible to go back and count the number of true Chicagoans we've featured over the years on the front and elsewhere in the paper, but quite frankly we just didn't have the time.
Here, we offer an obscenely small snapshot of just a few of the folks we've interviewed over the years. If you've ever been featured in RedEye in a big way, let us know on Facebook or Twitter. We want to hear how things are going!
Mr. Blue Hands
Featured: March 2005
Not once, but twice, Ceasar M. Perez graced the cover of RedEye in 2005, made barely recognizable by a smattering of blue and orange paint.
He was "Mr. Blue Hands," a rabidly passionate Illini fan who cheered the basketball team to the national championship in 2005. You couldn't watch a game without seeing his painted face. His dedication to braving cold weather to sit courtside at games led to an appearance in a college basketball video game, the cover of Sports Illustrated and an ongoing diary of his experiences in RedEye as the Orange and Blue advanced in the dance.
Where is he now? He's painting his head gold.
"Much to the chagrin of my friends and Illini fans everywhere, I am at the University of Notre Dame," he said. At 40, he's now married to the girl who would keep him company as he waited in blizzard conditions to get into games. He heads up Toys for Tots of Champaign County, and currently is job hunting as he pursues his executive MBA.
He DJs on the side, and despite years of disappointing Illini basketball, still follows the team. And he's still recognized everywhere he goes.
"I've been told I'm the closest thing to a mascot we still have," he said. He remembers his experience as the face of Illini basketball, and his appearance in RedEye, as "awesome."
"I was on every street corner in Chicago. How cool is that?" he said.
--Mick Swasko, mswasko@tribune.com, @mickswasko
Elizabeth Heaton
Featured: April 2011
Being the face of RedEye's story about the Chicago bisexual community in 2011 was no big thing for Elizabeth Heaton, now 24.
She'd been out for years. Perhaps not "front page" out, but certainly not hiding. "I was more nervous that my face was on the cover," said Heaton, who recently got her master's degree from the Adler School of Professional Psychology. She's looking for a job working with homeless LGBT youth and currently volunteers with the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance, which advocates for LGBT students.
Where is she now? Heaton, who now lives in Elmwood Park, has been dating her current girlfriend for about a year and said she feels the same as she did when she first spoke with RedEye-that bisexuality is increasingly no big
deal -and that's a good thing. "It's really being who you are," she said.
"If you don't stick to a label, that's fine. That's who you are."
--Georgia Garvey, ggarvey@tribune.com, @gcgarvey
Daniel Kibblesmith
Featured: August 2011
When we last saw Groupon writer Daniel Kibblesmith last summer, he was on "Millionaire Matchmaker" getting a total overhaul from love guru Patti Stanger. Kibblesmith's pants, shyness and puppets were all wrong, Stanger said. She advised fancy hats and wild women.
Where is he now? Now, more than a year later, Kibblesmith still is a nerd, but he's a nerd with a girlfriend.
"I'm seeing somebody. I've been seeing them for awhile. They're extremely shy," Kibblesmith, 29, said about his paramour, whom he met on the Internet. "I ended up just needing to be with another introvert."
Kibblesmith, of Wicker Park, said after the show aired on Bravo, he was flooded with emails and Facebook messages from women. He said he even received a letter written in scented purple marker from a woman in Canada.
Many of the letters told him not to change his persona, as Stanger had advised.
Kibblesmith, who has a humor novel coming out next year, said he hasn't spoken to Stanger since the show but he has kept the clothes she picked out for him-though he mismatches them with thrift-store items. "Everything I own has ink stains on it. Everything except the hats," he said.
--Tracy Swartz, tswartz@tribune.com, @tracyswartz
Miss America
Featured: September 2003
Winning Miss America in 2003
still feels surreal to Erika Harold, now 32. "It feels both like it was yesterday and a lifetime ago I think because that year was full of so many intense and incredible experiences that they remain such a big part of my life," said Harold, the former Miss Illinois.
Where is she now? Since being crowned, she has traveled the country speaking about preventing youth violence and bullying, attended the 2004 Republican National Convention and graduated from Harvard Law School in 2007 debt-free. She works as a lawyer in Chicago for the firm Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, is a board member of the nonprofit Prison Fellowship that does outreach to prisoners and their families, and this spring was considered a finalist to be the GOP candidate for a Congressional seat representing downstate Illinois. She remains interested in pursuing politics.
"Serving in the public sphere provides a great opportunity to make a difference and enact legislation that can positively affect people's lives and give people a voice," she said.
--Leonor Vivanco, lvivanco@tribune.com, @lvivanco
Want more? Discuss this article and others on RedEye's Facebook page.