Ed O'Bradovich

The University of Illlinois at Urbana-Champaign is a coeducational research university in the state of Illinois in the United States. It is the oldest and largest campus in the University of Illinois System. The university comprises 18 Colleges that offer more than 150 programs of study.... Additionally, the university operates an extension that serves 2.7 million registrants per year around the state of Illinois and beyond. The campus holds over 286 buildings on 1,468 acres in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana, and boasts an annual budget of nearly $1.5 billion. As of 30 June 2007, the University of Illinois Foundation—a systemwide endowment—totals at $2.197 billion.U.S. News & World Report ranked Illinois as the eighth-best public university in the United States in 2008. Enrollment in the fall of 2007 was 42,326, which included students from all 50 states and more than 123 nations. Of these, 30,895 were undergraduates and 11,431 were graduate students. Until 1998, Illinois was one of the 10 largest universities in the United States in terms of student enrollment.
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Melrose Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a "near-in" suburb of Chicago. Melrose Park has long been home to a large Italian-American population, though now it is majority Mexican-American. It was the home of Kiddieland Amusement Park and the current home of Maywood... Park Racetrack, Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and Stern Pinball, Inc., which is now the world's last manufacturer of coin-operated pinball machines. There is a Metra railroad station in Melrose Park with daily service to Chicago. Melrose Park is home to two hospitals, Westlake Hospital and Gottlieb Memorial Hospital. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, in 1882 residents of a then-unincorporated portion of Proviso Township voted to establish their own municipality—called simply "Melrose" until 1893, when the "Park" was added—and population in the area began to steadily increase. The first Italian-Americans arrived in 1888. On April 19, 1920 the F4 Palm Sunday tornado cut a 328 ft. wide path over 1094 yd. through the village and killed ten people. It destroyed the Sacred Heart Church and attached convent.
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