Will County Board pays tribute to late member Frank Stewart
BY JON SEIDEL Sun-Times Media jseidel@suntimes.com February 16, 2012 4:36PM
During Thursday's Will County Board meeting, Flowers were placed at the desk of member Frank Stewart, who died Feb. 9. | Larry Ruehl~Sun-Times Media
Updated: February 16, 2012 6:15PM
A vase full of flowers on an absent Will County Board member’s desk couldn’t make up for his empty chair as Frank Stewart’s colleagues remembered the late community advocate Thursday.
“It seems a little bit empty,” said Walter Adamic, a fellow Joliet Democrat and Stewart’s desk mate. “Frank would normally have been here with a smile and maybe a comment or two.”
Instead, black and purple bunting hung outside the Will County office building before board members gathered for their first meeting since the 66-year-old Stewart was found dead in his home Feb. 9. He’d been a member of the board since 1996.
He’ll be honored at a memorial service at 7 p.m. Monday at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Joliet, where he was a long-time member.
Stewart was a diabetic, county officials said, and had been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant. Still, his death took many county officials by surprise.
County Board member Charles “Chuck” Maher, R-Naperville, said he wore a Washington, D.C. tie in Stewart’s honor Thursday.
That’s where Maher said he first got to know Stewart.
“Frank is just a really, truly genuine person that had his heart in the right place,” Maher said.
Jim Bilotta, R-Lockport, said he realized Stewart’s influence at conferences for the National Association of Counties. Stewart was a member of its health committee.
“Everybody knew Frank,” Bilotta said. “He was friends with people from L.A. all the way to Miami all the way to New York.”
County board members filled the vase on Stewart’s desk with flowers Thursday and took a moment to remember him with silence. Denise Winfrey, D-Joliet, also read a Black History Month proclamation from President Obama.
The White House sent it to the county at Stewart’s request.
“The plaque will be hung here in the county with a note in memory of Frank Stewart,” Winfrey said.
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