About Wayne A. Strnad

Wayne was born and raised in Chicago.

The first 14 years of his life were filled with excitement and experimentation in mathematics and astronomy.

By age 10 Wayne had built his first optical telescope under the guidance of the staff at the Adler Planetarium.  This was during a period when they offered mirror grinding for the general public.  He also attended several adult classes held at the planetarium.

In the mid 1960’s his interest diversified to include physics and philosophy, reading books that were previously banned from reading by such authors as Bertrand Russell, who later came to be called the Father of Set Theory.  In his youth, Wayne would devour Math books at a rate of about one every two to three weeks.  He had a quest to learn as much as a could about math, physics and astronomy.

Also, in the first half of the 1960’s he became aware of the disparity between races and how people were not being treated equally.  For him, the point of confusion was that the priests in the church preached about Jesus Christ and love.  Yet, the same people that attended these services who apparently agreed with what they were hearing because they would continually come back for more, were themselves part of a problem.  Remember, the year is around 1963.

Dr. Martin Luther King came to the forefront of a movement that was later to be called the Civil Rights Movement.

High School

In 1964 Wayne started high school.  He attended Gordon Tech High School.

During his first year at the school he worked on a woodworking project that was entered into statewide competition held in Normal, Illinois.  His project, a hand carving, won an award.

At age 15 he was asked to teach his fellow students and upperclassmen how to use a slide rule - not by the conventional "scientific notation" method but by a method he discovered himself. 

He graduated magna cum laude in 1968.

College

In the fall of 1968 Wayne attended DePaul University.  His major was mathematics and his minor was physics although he was only a few credit hours away from a double major.

During his first year in college he noticed that there simply was not an organization that was composed of both males and females.  At that time there were organizations that were for men only, called fraternities, and for women only, called sororities.  So one day Wayne and two other people decided to create an organization composed of men and women - a fratority.  It's name was Tau Omicron Kappa or TOK for short.

Unlike the purpose of other groups, it was set up to help people.  We ran food drives, clothing drives and other activities that helped the community.  Individual members also worked with Little Brothers of the Poor and DePaul's food pantry.

In 1972 Wayne graduated from DePaul University.  He graduated magna cum laude.

More...

This informational picket that was held on the south end of the Brickyard Mall, lasted 400 days.  The only reason it stopped was that the statute of limitations took effect.

Dick Devine, the Cook County States Attorney, did absolutely nothing about the nearly 5000 pages of documentation that showed exactly where the voting irregularities appeared.  This was the first election in the 29th Ward that Carothers won.