EPCHS Alum In The Spotlight: John Nowak, Class Of 1959

Evergreen Park IL

01 March, 2022

3:54 PM

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EVERGREEN PARK, IL - Entering high school as a freshman is a new experience for everyone, but it took on an extra meaning for John Nowak, a 1959 alum of Evergreen Park Community High School. Nowak was a member of the first graduating class to spend all four years of high school at the building at 99th and Kedzie. "We went in there as freshmen knowing just as much about the school as the sophomores and juniors," Nowak said. "So we weren't treated like freshmen because everyone had the same non-understanding of what to expect." Growing up in Evergreen Park during the 1950s was a bit different than today. "The Dairy Queen on Kedzie just south of 95th Street was something all us kids couldn't wait to open," Nowak remembers. "We could get an ice cream cone for a nickel, which we all loved. Many of my nickels ended up at the DQ and when you got to know the lady working there you got an extra big nickel cone." Not everything was different, Nowak points out. "I always liked going to Wolf's Bakery," he added. "Every time I come back, I make sure to order something from them. That hasn't changed in 60-some years." Nowak's first summer job was as a laborer for the Evergreen Park grammar schools and their maintenance director, Johnny Hojek, who would later become Evergreen Park's fire chief. "I got to clean and repair the schools during summer vacation," he said. "We did such important things as scraping the excessive wax on the tile floors, cleaning all the windows and repairing whatever needed to be fixed. I got $1 an hour which, at the time, I could not believe. I got a whole $40 every week." When his EPCHS graduation neared, Nowak figured he would enlist in the U.S. Army. No one in his family before him went to college, and Nowak "wasn't the greatest student in the world," he said. But Lois Skillen, an EPCHS counselor at the time, convinced him to go to college. He went to Michigan Technological University and after four years earned a degree in metallurgical engineering. He went on to run five plants for two different companies, working for Wyman-Gorman Co. for 25 years until moving on to Walker Forge in 1988. He retired from Walker Forge as president and CEO, and still works there as a director of engineering at age 80. "Had it not been for my high school counselor, none of that would have happened," Nowak said. Nowak now enjoys splitting his time between living in Punta Gorda, Florida, and Racine, Wisconsin. "I love it," he said. "It's 88 degrees and I'm in a thin little T-shirt in February."