Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 129

INSIDE SECTION 17 tSchools 2 ....2 JSpotlight 3 Calendar 5 -Club Hopping 5 ic; UAU; Uo avG SAFETY NET Free screenings can uncover trouble before it gets too serious. Page 3 Sunday, April 28, 1996 9- asstp -fT JSP r' -ATS i 1 Tribune photo by Bob Langer Much of "Giants in Action" is taped at the Post- Newsweek Cable studios. Lights! Camera! Tribune photos by Michael Budrys A CH-54 cargo helicopter shares space with more than 100 military vehicles, including tanks, at the Kenosha Military Museum. I A fa arrns? Jewell to Behind and in front of the camera, students get I andgrveatteoiTvjournaJism By Linda Mae Caristone Special to the Tribune Antioch's Mark Sonday loves his military museum, but neighbors and town officials in Bristol, want to play 'Taps' his can't be school. There are celebrity interviews and production conferences.

Camera crews and camera shoots. Takes and retakes. Studio segments and man-on-the-street pieces. "3 But look closer and, yes, those are high school students behind the microphones and cameras. "Giants in Action," the show they are producing, may look like pure television, but it's actually a place where "2020" meets Highland Park High School: half TV show, half Mass.

'Although the object of the class is to teach students about television, the show they produce in their laboratory is a full-fledged video production experience that no class confined to lectures and desks could duplicate. And the end product is sent out over the air waves Jbr every cable subscriber in Highland Park and Jiighwood (5 and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday; 3 and p.m. Saturday and Sunday on Post-Newsweek Cable Channel 4). It's something like having your term Saper grade A or grade mailed to the entire community.

Yes, the show has some rough edges: lighting that leaves half a face in shadow, or an interview that inadvertently uses a public restroom as a backdrop the See Television, Page 8 By Christine A. Verstraete Special to the Tribune mmi jT ark Sonday loves talking about his collection. Ill jl Ask him about a certain piece, and he'll tell 1 1 1 you numDer made. history, weight, practi- I cally everything except the serial number. Now, though, he is distracted, frantically searching for a chain before driving to the Kenosha, train depot for a special delivery.

"I've only got 24 hours to move it," he says of the self-propelled gun that has just come in from Georgia. The delivery might not excite most people, but most don't have the enthusiasm for military hardware that this Antioch resident has. Take a recent Minneapolis trip. He returned with two huge orange drones that were once used for target practice. "A guy had them in his junk yard," Sonday says.

His critics, of course, would insist that that's where everything comes from at Sonday's not-for-profit Kenosha Military Museum of Bristol, along the west side of Interstate Highway 94 just north of the Wisconsin border. "They only seem to understand that I'm a junk collector," he says, "but I'm pre Mark Sonday peers into the command center of an M-47 tank from the Korean War era. Though much of the gear at the Kenosha Military Museum consists of the tanks and large guns outside, a garagelike building houses smaller items, such as this model of a 1943 German GZ BMW motorcycle and a German soldier's helmet (below). serving this stuff so I 7 future generations I can see it. 3 AiatUM) a.

ks The 42-year-old Sonday's fascination with military items began, innocently enough, while growing up in Chicago and visiting the old war-assets area at Chicago's Navy Pier. "All the kids would go over there and 1 1 LakeTalk Lake County castle: The Cuneo Mansion in Vernon Hills soon joins the ranks of other nationally celebrated estates when a production crew Srom the Arts and Entertainment cable network larrives on June 18 to begin filming for its "America's Castles" program. Titled "Windy City Castles" and scheduled to run early next fall, this segment will become part of 25-episode Emmy-nominated series. "The first thing we noticed about the Cuneo was how beautiful it is, with all the statues and stained Jlass," said Cecil Stokes, research consultant for Cinetel Films of Knoxville, the program's froductipn company Other criteria included a large percentage of original furnishings. Stokes added, tThis is the kind of home a king would have lived in .5 Leslie Jacobs rummage through the garbage," he recalls.

"We'd find an old uniform, a pair of pants As kids we thought that was great stuff. Before we knew it, we had our own army unit. According to my mom and dad, I've been collecting since I was little." Today his search is more complicated, with federal permits, import licenses and bureaucratic red tape necessary to obtain items here and abroad. But time, distance and cosiv it seems, are inconsequential. "I enjoy the hunt," he shrugs.

It took him two years, for instance, to convince the Israeli government that he is a collector and not an arms dealer. After1 succeeding, in 1980 he spent thousands of dollars (he won't say how much exactly) for 11 U.S. tanks in Israel that had been used in World War the Korean War and the Israeli Six-Day War. After 21 years of marriage, Joyce Sonday says she's no longer surprised by anything. She and their two sons often help in the museum.

"At first, I thought he was crazy," she says with a laugh. "The first tank he brought home was a Sherman. At the weigh station in Wadsworth, he was overweight, oversized and had the wrong truck. It cost him $4,000" in fines. Since moving the equipment to his 15-acre parcel about eight years ago, Sonday has been gradually spending less Young diplomats: Highland Park High School has Won the highest honor twice in one year at different Model United Nations conferences.

The 30 Highland Park students who participated last fall in the simulated UN conferences in Boston met again this spring in New York with students from 200 to 300 schools worldwide and debated issues on everything from war crimes to world health, said Myraioris, a social studies teacher. The participating schools were assigned different countries (in Highland Park's case Poland, Germany and Egypt) and developed positions on those countries' views about particular issues. Their object was to persuade their peers to accept certain rationales they had developed on the issues, Loris said. (For example, they developed evidence, tried and convicted people of Bosnian war crimes.) The Highland Park team won Best Delegation at both Xt i See military Page 2 4- Mcmarei van uucn 4.