Dave Hoekstra
Class of 1973Alumni Recognition Award, 2006
In art there is compassion, in compassion there is humanity; with humanity there is generosity and love. (Spoken by Brock Peters at Gregory Peck's funeral.)
After a long and successful career inspired by these words, Dave Hoekstra returns to Naperville Central High School with much to be proud of. Since he graduated high school in 1973, Dave has led and continues to lead a life that encapsulates these words and exemplifies each constituent trait. As such a devoted and charismatic man as Dave Hoekstra illustrates, these are truly excellent words by which to live.
Dave Hoekstra's exciting career in journalism began in full-force during high school, as he assumed the demanding role of editor of Smoke Signals, the NCHS student newspaper at the time. While on staff in his junior and senior years, Smoke Signals was showered with praise and won the prestigious award for Best High School Newspaper in DuPage County.
In his post-high school years, Dave attended College of DuPage until he landed his first full-time reporting position for the Aurora Beacon-News. As impressive a position this was for a young man, this was only the start of his outstanding career, as his extraordinary journalism skills led him to new and exciting places.
Since 1985, Dave has been a staff writer-columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times, as well as a contributing writer for Playboy Magazine and The Chicago Reader, and a former contributing editor for Chicago Magazine. For his achievements, he won a 1987 Chicago Newspaper Guild Stick-O-Type Award for Column Writing.
His accomplishments even range beyond column writing. In 2000, Dave compiled the best of his "Detours" travel columns for The Chicago Sun-Times into a book by Lake Claremont Press, Ticket to Everywhere. Nominated for a 2001-2002 Chicago Emmy for "Outstanding Achievement for Documentary - Cultural Significance", Dave wrote and co-produced the WTTW-Channel 11 PBS Special, "The Staple Sings and the Civil Rights Movement." His essay on Steve Earle, originally published in The Journal of Country Music, was featured in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000.
In 2005, Dave completed one of his most ambitious projects with the publication of Farm Aid: A Song for America, for which he was the lead writer. With a forward by Willie Nelson, the book is a celebration of Farm Aid's 20th Anniversary, and is complete with essays, interviews, song lyrics, and photographs of several Farm Aid sings, including Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and Bonnie Raitt.
During his lifetime, Dave has traveled Route 66 extensively, has traveled from Chicago to New Orleans by boat, has followed the Chicago Cubs all over the country, and has visited such places as Havana, Cuba; Tokyo, Japan; Fairbanks, Alaska, the Dominican Republic; and Honduras.
Still, Dave's roots remain in Naperville, where his parents still life in the same house in which he was raised since 1967. His best memory of Naperville Central lies in the encouragement and teaching of Marilyn Hollman and the whole NCHS English Department, and the positive spirit of all the teachers during his time at Naperville Central.
NAME'S MESSAGE TO STUDENTS: In art there is compassion, in compassion there is humanity; with humanity there is generosity and love. (Spoken by Brock Peters at Gregory Peck's funeral.)
