Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 1-7

7 MWCHICAGO TRIBUNE SECTION1 The unusually rainy summer does not appear to be a factor, said. Rossi applied an epoxy product called Delpatch in 129 locations on Runway 31 Center, which is 6,522 feet long and 150 feet wide. A newly repaired patch of runway blew out while a jet- liner took off July 19. A business plane that landed immediately after the pavement measuring four square feet and four inches minor damage to its landing gear, according to the FAA. A second pavement blowout occurred Aug.

20. City officials subsequently removed 13 additional Delpatch pavement patches based on concerns raised during maintenance inspections. Asphalt was used instead of Delpatch in the 15 locations, officials said. Now, all of the patches will come out, and they will be replaced with more Delpatch, which city officials say is a good product used at other airports. was atypical for the Del- patch that was installed in April to experience a problem so said.

Delpatch has been used for about five years, with mixed results, at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee. engineers did not give Delpatch a ringing endorsement, but for the most part it has been OK for said Mitchell spokeswoman Pat Rowe. well it holds up depends on how it bonds and environmental Chicago officials said they have no cost estimate for the new work at Midway, which also will be done by Rossi under existing term agreements. Asked whether the city would be on the hook to pay the cost, said, are investigating the accountability of the parties Rossi Construction did not return a call seeking comment Friday. Runway 31 Center is only 100 percent concrete runway.

The all the runways at a concrete base with an asphalt overlay. Runway 31 Center, made up of about 3,000 individual concrete panels, was reconstructed in 1992 and expected to have a 20- year life span until the next major rehab, officials said. While 31 Center is out of commission for repairs next week, work also will be done simultaneously on runway navigational aids and construction at the tip of the runway of an aircraft arrester bed. Consisting of crushable blocks of water, foam and concrete, the arrester bed is designed to safely stop planes that roll off the end of the runway. Construction will be completed this year on four arrester beds at Midway.

They are being installed in the wake of a December 2005 accident in which a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 skidded off the end of 31 Center while landing in a snowstorm. The plane crashed into several vehicles on Central Avenue, killing an Indiana boy riding in one of the cars. Contact Getting Around at jhil- or the Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Chicago, IL 60611. Read recent columns at www.chi- cagotribune.com/gettinga- round MIDWAY: Cost liability still must be determined CONTINUEDFROMPAGE6 MODIFICATIONS AT MIDWAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT Source: Midway Airport, Google EarthChicago Tribune Runway 31C: 129 patches will be replaced.

Arrester beds: Work will continue on the crushable concrete, designed to slow or stop runaway planes. Terminal Midway International Airport Tribune photo by Scott Strazzante Workers make temporary repairs last month to Runway 31 Center at Midway Airport in Chicago. All 129 epoxy-based patches applied to the runway in April will be replaced next week. Bingenheimer said. The day Lisa Stebic went missing, Craig Stebic called cell phone, she said.

wanted to know if I knew where Lisa she said. When she reach Lisa Stebic, Bingenheimer said, she walked over to her house. house was not she said. of the blinds were pulled Lisa never pulled the shades. It just look right.

A sinking feeling sunk in. I went to work and called the She said Lisa Stebic had told the children to go to the Bingen- home if anything happened to her. The children never came, she added. Eiting said the number of people offering information in the case recently diminished, but added that the case still our Both police and prosecutors would prefer that the children are interviewed at either the Will County Advocacy Center or, if Craig Stebic prefers, another Advocacy Center in Illinois to help ensure objectivity. still hold out a slim hope that there will be a of the decision not to let the children be interviewed at a Advocacy Center, Pelkie said.

Melanie Greenberg, Lisa cousin and a spokeswoman for the missing family, said they have encouraged Craig Stebic to allow the children to be interviewed. think anyone really wants to drag these kids into a big, intimidating courtroom before a grand Greenberg said. understand that is a decision police may have to go forward with. I understand they need to speak with those The family now believes Lisa Stebic did not leave of her own accord, and they believe the children might know information that would help explain what happened to her, Greenberg said. need she added.

difficult. We still have any idea where Lisa STEBIC: Lawyer says cops scared 2 children CONTINUEDFROMPAGE6 my grandfather used years he said. difference is in the organic market a The premium for organic food has heads turning across the nation as demand increases. Some of the corn and soybean growers are converting to meet a growing demand for organic feed as more meat and milk producers certify their herds. The Organic Trade Association notes that organic meat and poultry production increased 55 percent in 2005, but still a small percentage of overall meat sales.

Wilken already has a buyer down the road for his organic feed. Ryan Wolfe has certified his grazing land and has to feed his 110 dairy cows organic grain and hay for another year before selling the organic milk, for what could be double the profit. He said his transition is easy because the farm already did not use antibiotics or hormones. Stan Schutte, who farms just south of Champaign, saw organic premiums as a way out of a nearly 24-hour workday. For 20years he had been conventionally farming his produce, corn and soybeans, and much of that time he worked the third shift at a factory to make ends meet instead of hitting the hay at night.

Now organic, Schutte is farming about a third of the land he did conventionally. He is starting work to build an organic- meat processing facility, Family Farmers Meat, in Mattoon for his pork and beef. His plant has several investors from Chicago, where he hopes to sell much of the meat. The only organic meat plant in Illinois now is the Eureka Locker, preventing many livestock producers in Illinois from becoming fully certified. Joining that effort is Harry Carr, who in 2004 certified his land and 350 ewes in Stelle.

He sells his grass-fed meat at Green City Market every week but market it as certified organic. That would require him to use the distant Eu- reka Locker. With the new plant nearby, he could be certified and part of the demand for organic feed when he adds chickens, ducks and pigs to his farm. Pete Wettstein, 25, a farmer and bricklayer, said he hopes to farm full time and sees organic as a way for younger farmers to make more money with less land. He began converting parts of his 200 acres five years ago in Eureka.

main thing is you need a lot of acres to turn a profit. With conventional, all about the he said. organic, a lot more work and a lot more time. You physically farm more acres. But your profit margin can be similar to someone with three times the Wilken also sees organic as key to the future for younger farmers, whose numbers are dwindling.

His son, Ross, the fifth in a line of farmers, decided to partner with his father and their landlord after seeing the potential in organic feed production. In addition to premiums, Wilken said, it costs about $100 less per acre of corn to plant without chemicals. These benefits offset the expense of extra machinery and workers, and the cost, up to $1,000 a year, for an inspector to certify the land. But traditions run as deep as alfalfa roots, and some farmers scoff at the idea of changing. Schutte said peer pressure might be the No.

1 factor preventing many farmers from converting. Right now, just too far from the norm. Wilken says the most rewarding part of his transitionwas being successful at something his neighbors found wacky. To be successful, farmers say, price be the only driving factor. You have to want to work, Wilken said, and you have to be willing to take the risk and still learn the tricks of farming the old-fashioned way.

ORGANIC: Method may draw in more young farmers CONTINUEDFROMPAGE6 a sunup-to-sundown kind of job, so you count your hours. You do it because what you love to Brockman, director of The Land Connection, a resource for organic farmers when Meehan shared a funny story on eBay about how her sons shattered a light fixture while playing ball in their bedroom. The hilarious story drew more than 220,000 people to view her auction listing for the ball. The ball sold for $1,125. Thousands of people encouraged Meehan to write a book.

guess I still buy Meehan said of the praise and encouragement. She loved to write and showed talent in high schoolbut never took a writing class, never attended college. She decided to start writing stories but keep them private. But money problems were bearing down on the Meehans. Last spring, mother sent her an e-mail with ideas for making money from home.

One of those ideas was a blog. If enough people read the blog, companies would place ads on it. If people start clicking on the ads, the blogger receives payment. Meehan started a blog June 29. She was getting about 10 visits a day.

On Aug. 17, she decided she might get more traffic if she shared another funny story of modern motherhood on story of her buying cards unknowingly after her children sneaked them in the cart during grocery-shopping. would rather swim, covered in bait, through the English Channel than take my six kids to the grocery Meehan wrote in the auction entry. comes a time, however, when peering into your fridge and thinking, what can I make with ketchup, Italian dressing, and half an Again, response was explo- online visits in four days. People asked if she had a blog, and she directed them there.

As of Friday, visits to www.mom2my6pack.blog- spot.com,were numbering close to 100,000 a day. People from nearly 70 countries have registered as on her blog. Since that Aug. 17 posting, publishers, a TV producer, magazine editors and a pop culture online magazine coordinator have asked her to write for them. Literary agents have offered their representation.

just thought it was said Jennifer de la Fuente, a mother of three and an agent with Venture Literary, which has offices in New York and San Diego. She called writing and said it struck the right balance of but lot of the out there feels so negative, catty and de la Fuente just felt a little fresher to me. I really responded to that Added Janet Grant, founder and agent with Books Such in Santa Rosa, invites you to enjoy her cheeky, plucky view of momhood, and you want to keep reading to find out what witticism will escape from her next. Erma Bombeck with six kids and two grocery carts wreaking havoc with your funny fans, many of whom are stay-at-home moms, a lot of them with military husbands deployed overseas, send heartfelt e-mails to her in which they say they have been brought to tears, both from empathy and laughter. She is, to many, a comic therapist, and one who always looks to self-deprecation.

Asked to explain her popularity, Meehan said, just think so many people could husband, Joe, a school maintenance man and part-time remodeler, and her mother, Diana Damalas, said she has always had a love and gift for writing. That talent, sense of humor and a wealth of material have combined to create one very popular humorist. our kids are so Joe Meehan said. I think everybody can relate to one of Dawn Meehan, who was born in Chicago and raised in Hoffman Estates, did not fit a gifted academic profile as a teenager at Fremd High School in Palatine. She called herself who loved writing and often was placed in accelerated classes.

would try and goof off until they moved me back in the lower Meehan said. She participated in drama and was in the art club at Fremd, graduating the of her class in 1988, she said. even remember back she said, chuckling. think I was too much into having fun with my friends. I know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

So I go to After shrugging off college, she got a tattoo of a fish on her right ankle. She worked as a waitress, then as a clerk for a heavy machinery distributor. In 1990 she met Joe Meehan, and the two married in 1992, about the same time they moved into a three-bedroom ranch that they later converted to four bedrooms. Their first son, Austin, was born in 1994. He was followed by a daughter, Savannah, in 1996.

Since then, their family has welcomed Jackson, Lexington, Clayton and Brooklyn; the Mee- hans said they ran out of cities, so they started on boroughs. Dawn Meehan writing. But she was excelling at hawking Tupperware, earning a trip to the Bahamas and two vans before it became too hectic and she quit. She also was collecting reams of material. At one point she came up with the idea of placing an item on eBay.

have no idea Meehan said. guess I just kind of wanted to share this story I thought was She types her blog from a cheap computer wedged in a corner of her bedroom, which she and Joe share with 1-year- old Brooklyn. And Meehan often writes after 11 p.m. She writes about all things domestic, from lamenting the lack of patience in children to discussing her battle with dieting and her approach to teaching a daughter to shave her legs. Meehan said she writes very fast and model her writing after anyone.

She just thinks about what happened in her day, looks for the funny parts and starts tapping on the keyboard. The method, as late in life as she found it, is working. years from now, hopefully I be locked up in an Meehan said. would just love to see a couple books in print. the biggest thrill for me is all the people who have emailed me, saying it has affected them in a positive way.

I am loving BLOG: Story-writing started with Web site ad CONTINUEDFROMPAGE1 Tribune photo by Candice C. Cusic Dawn Meehan plays with Savannah, 11(left), and Clayton, 3, outside her home. The stay-at-home online blog about life in suburbia with six children has attracted attention from book publishers and agents. lot of the out there feels so negative, catty and whiny. This just felt a little fresher to de la Fuente, an agent interested in Dawn blog Product: CTMAIN PubDate: 09-03-2007 Zone: MW Edition: HD Page: MWMETRO-7 User: rhochgesang Time: Color: CMYK.