Meet Debra Shore

For more than 15 years Debra has been an active volunteer helping to clean up and restore the forest preserves along the North Branch of the Chicago River in Cook County. This work has taught her that the waters and woods are the real Discovery Zone in our region, essential for our quality of life, for cleaning our air and water, for recreation and contemplation. Debra served on President John Stroger’s Community Advisory Council on Land Management from 1997 to 2007 and is a founding board member of Friends of the Forest Preserves.

Background

• Founding editor of Chicago WILDERNESS Magazine, an award-winning quarterly devoted to the rare nature of the Chicago region since 1997
• A leader in the regional conservation consortium known as Chicago Wilderness, more than 200 public and private organizations working together to protect, preserve, restore and manage the precious natural ecosystems of the greater Chicago metropolitan area Delegate to US Forest Service Centennial Congress in Washington DC in January 2005
• Winner of Peter Lisagor Award for Excellence in Editorial Writing, 2003
• Graduate of Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership, 2003, a program established by leading Democratic women in Illinois to recruit and groom women to run for public office
• Investigator and writer for the Better Government Association, 1982–1990
• Freelance magazine writer published in Outside, United Airlines Hemispheres, George, University of Chicago Magazine, Travel Holiday, Southwest Airlines Spirit, Chicago, Texas Monthly
• Lives in Evanston / Skokie with partner, Kathleen Gillespie
• Mother of Ben Smith, age 23, graduate student in architecture
• Member of the following boards:
• University of Chicago Women's Board
• Democratic Party of Evanston
• Boards on which I have served in the past:
• Illinois Environmental Council
• IVI-IPO
• Stonewall Democrats of Illinois
• Friends of the Forest Preserves
• US Landcare
• B.A., Goucher College, Phi Beta Kappa, Philosophy and Visual Arts, 1974
• Master of Liberal Arts, Johns Hopkins University, 1976
• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Columbia College, Chicago, 1995
• Has climbed 42 of the 54 mountains in Colorado over 14,000 feet high
• Longtime volunteer in habitat restoration work in the Cook County Forest Preserves