Goodbye, friend
Sun photographer helped world see humor even in difficult times
To know Chuck Cass, you have to know the story of the T-shirt.
On the same day in 2004 that his car was burglarized, his windows
smashed and his cameras taken away, he also found one shirt that
Jonathan Miano / Staff photographer
PHOTO GALLERY
• Farewell Chuck Cass
It carried the words "Doo Doo Occurs," and it was the shirt he wore that day to his baptism at Calvary Church in Aurora.
Despite the occurrences of that day and despite being in the middle of
a fierce fight with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Cass told those at Calvary,
"How bad I feel physically, none of it matters. The past year of my
life was the best ever."
Only Chuck Cass could find reason to smile even with all the "doo doo" occurring around him.
To know Chuck Cass is to know that day carried the convergence of dear
things in his life: his photography, his faith and his humor.
All three also brought a peace that carried him until early Saturday
morning, when the Sun photographer died at 31 after nearly three years
battling cancer.
For those of us with The Sun, Chuck Cass was more than a colleague. He was someone we were proud to call our friend.
His photographs graced 1,580 stories with various Sun publications from
Crystal Lake to St. Charles to Naperville. Along with those images, he
left a legacy of kindness, caring and strength.
Honored many times over
Born June 27, 1974, in Flushing, N.Y., Cass lived around the New
York-New Jersey area until 1980, when his family moved to Barrington.
He was the mischievous child, not usually malicious deeds but prankish
ones that ranged from large to small. He and his younger brother, Dave,
would sometimes ride their bikes well beyond the boundaries set by
their parents, venturing a few miles down the road into a neighboring
town.
"It was to Lake Zurich, the next town over, but it was farther than we should be," Dave Cass said.
Whatever scrapes he and his brother would get into as young brothers
do, they would end when the family went "to the shore." On the beach,
they would walk together or float aside each other on rafts.
The brothers never remained too far apart growing up. They attended
comic-book and baseball-card shows together. As they grew older, that
became music stores and concerts. They even lived together while both
attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
That mischief also found a channel in photography. Cass first found
interest in it when he took a class with Barrington High School teacher
Jeff Dionesotes.
"He was not a great communicator verbally, but it was a wonderful way to express himself," said Chuck's father, Michael.
That continued at Illinois with his work on the student newspaper, The Daily Illini, as well as experimentations on his own.
Cass started work for Pioneer Press newspapers in his hometown and also
did freelance work for The Sun's former papers around Crystal Lake.
"He was a terrific guy and wonderful to work with," said Sun staff
writer D.J. Wanberg, who also worked in Crystal Lake. "I instantly
liked him when I met him."
After a photographer left the Crystal Lake office, former Photo Editor
Jim Kutina hired Cass in June 2000. One of the set of photographs that
surprised Kutina were those of Cass' mother, Patricia, who died after
fighting cervical cancer a few years earlier.
Cass chronicled his mother's fight and came away with raw, emotional
images. The project and being a photographer provided a buffer for him
during a difficult experience.
Former Elgin Courier-News photographer Marcia Rules said he was not
above asking for advice and getting counsel on his work. He was
virtually free of the ego that sometimes accompanies young artists.
Cass was soon producing award-winning work. Cass won honors from the
Illinois Press Association for spot news in 2003. Even while missing
work in the early rounds of his fight, he took five more IPA awards.
Cass also finished third in the Illinois Press Photographers
Association's Photographer of the Year point standings that year. In
April, he took a first-place award in the IPPA's Best of Journalism
contest for a pictorial photograph.
Cass and the rest of the Crystal Lake staff moved into the Naperville
office that fall when The Sun started papers in Batavia, Geneva and St.
Charles.
"Every time I would send Chuck on an assignment, I had no clue what he
would bring back," Sun Photo Editor Jim Svehla said. "It was always a
surprise, but it was also how he saw the world."
Once Svehla sent his photographer to "one of those mundane assignments
that we have to do," an Outdoor Education Day at Batavia's Grace Wayne
Elementary School.
Chuck Cass brought back an image of rubber chicken flying through the air.
"It was just funny," Svehla said.
Cass' photography portrayed a sly, nudging humor, the kind of pictures
that made you double-take or triple-take before you laughed.
Why not put shamrock antennae on a 100-year-old woman just because she
was celebrating the century mark on St. Patrick's Day? And who else
could take a picture of the one guy in a Spider-Man costume roaming
around downtown Naperville? Why not wait around Halloween on the
Illinois campus and follow someone wearing a Pooh Bear costume to his
math class?
The final one of those photos was part of the book "C-U in 7 Plus,"
chronicling a week in Urbana-Champaign. More of his work was also
published in Illinois 24/7.
Patience played a part, looking for what famous photographer Henry Cartier-Bresson called "the decisive moment."
It's something Cass carried in abundance.
"I thought I was patient, but he would stand there for hours in one spot," Sun photographer Jonathan Miano said.
Other colleagues pointed to his natural eye and his ability to find a
sliver of light when it seemed there was none. However, the empathy and
caring for his subjects might have stayed one of the largest strengths.
With well-known people who are experienced with fame and media, it's
often hard to penetrate a palpable shell. In March 2002, Cass helped
chronicle the final week on the job for WLS-Channel 7 anchor and
Wheaton native John Drury. His pictures helped crack that small shell,
showing a side of Drury people often didn't see.
"He could talk to a guy with the most money in the world to the lowliest person," former Sun photographer Leslie Barbaro said.
Fight and faith
In summer 2003, Cass came to Svehla concerned about a lingering
sickness. The editor asked about his symptoms and told him to see a
doctor.
His father accompanied him during his biopsy. The diagnosis would soon come back with his cancer. Treatment began immediately.
Former Sun Editor in Chief Joe Corrado didn't know what to expect when
he first visited Cass in the hospital not long after the diagnosis. He
readied his emotions for a somber scene.
Instead, Corrado found Cass in his hospital room joking about the food.
Through two stem-cell transplants, rounds of chemotherapy and radiation
as well as their side effects, he kept his quiet, unassuming demeanor
and his soft, ethereal smile.
With the help of Miano and another former colleague, Stuart Thurlkill,
he also found strength in coming back to religion. As a child, Cass and
his family were involved in the Lutheran Church, and while his mother
fought her own cancer, she also turned to faith.
He often expressed this newfound faith through praying, listening to
music or reading everything from the Bible to books from Ravi Zacharias.
Cass also found strength in being around his co-workers. He even came
back to work for stretches between treatment. The last of those was
from January to April this year. Among his assignments was the start of
Illinois men's basketball team's postseason run that ended in the
national championship game.
Even when he wasn't working, Cass often made appearances at The Sun's newsroom, always carrying his ready smile.
As is the case with cancers, especially those of the blood, sometimes
the cure is as malignant as the disease, often taking a large sum on
the body.
Cass passed away 4 a.m. Saturday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in
Chicago surrounded by his family and friends. He is survived by his
father; brother; a niece, Evelina; a nephew, McCaleb; and his
girlfriend, Irene Kim.
That's in addition to his colleagues and friends here at The Sun.
"I consider working with Chuck the luckiest experience in my career," former Sun Photo Editor Sid Hastings said.
Contact Alan Ferguson at aferguson@scn1.com or (630) 416-5291.
