Bernard Binder:
CLASS OF 1966
Saint Roch SchoolClass of 1966
Indianapolis, IN
Bernard's Story
After graduating from St. Roch in 1966, I attended Brebeuf Prep for one year, and then my family returned to the Chicago area. We moved to LaGrange Park, where my parents lived until my mom died in 1999 and my dad in March of 2013.
I graduated from Fenwick High School in Oak Park in 1970 and then went to Northwestern University where I double majored in Chemistry (Biochemistry) and Psychology (Neuroscience). I was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity. My family traveled extensively in Europe every summer while I was in high school and college.
I then entered medical school at the University of Illinois, Chicago and graduated in 1978. I completed a general surgery residency at Cook County Hospital in 1983, married Karan, a midwife, and moved to Minnesota, where I worked at Columbia Park Medical Group for six years. We lived in New Brighton and I worked in Fridley. Our two daughters, Christine and Diane, were born in Minnestota in 1985 and 1988.
In 1989 we returned to the Chicago area when I took a job at Dreyer Medical Clinic in Aurora. I performed general, thoracic, and vascular surgery at both Rush Copley Medical Center and Presence Mercy Medical Center. I retired on my 55th birthday in 2007.
My wife Karan was a soccer mom and Girl Scout and school volunteer when my daughters were growing up. She volunteered a lot at DuPage Family Shelter after the girls left home.
Christine graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School in 2004. She got a bachelors degree in history from Oberlin College and then a masters degree in public health from New York University. She married Brian in 2015, and she and her husband live in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. S...Expand for more
he works for a non profit in downtown Manhattan, and he teaches and is a dean at a private school on the Upper East Side. She was blessed with a wonderful voice. She loves to cook and bake. She is active in her church in Greenwich Village.
Diane graduated from Waubonsie Valley High School in 2007. She was a starting midfielder on her high school soccer team which was the Illinois state champion in her senior year. She graduated from Purdue University in 2011 with a degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management. She worked for Fairmont Hotels for many years in Scottsdale, AZ, the big island of Hawaii, Berkeley, and San Fransisco. She left Fairmont to work in the HR department of the Oakland Athletics for several years. Now she is the Director of Human Resources at a ski resort in the North Lake Tahoe area. She has run in many marathons, and recently ran in a half marathon in Brooklyn, cheered on by her sister. She recently got engaged to Ray. They are planning a wedding in Oakland in November of 2022.
After retirement, I golfed four times a week at Stonebridge Country Club in Aurora, IL, where we lived. Until the pandemic, we traveled many times to Europe, usually taking various Rick Steves tours, and we even toured China for a month in 2008 when Diane was doing an internship at a hotel in Nanjing for five months.
in 2016, we moved to Peoria, AZ where we live in an active adult community. We have made many friends here. I golf twice a week, all year round. Now that the pandemic is over, we will resume international travel.
Attached is a photo of me, Diane, Karan, and Christine taken at the Fairmont Mayakoba, just south of Cancun in September of 2012.
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