photo credit: Bill Cameron, 89 WLS News

(Countryside, IL)  Illinois said farewell to the late State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka with a memorial service today.  In Countryside, Illinois at the Local 150 Operating Engineers union hall more than a thousand turned out, standing room only with virtually all of the state’s top politicians, to celebrate the life of Judy Baar Topinka.  

Governor-elect Bruce Rauner said Topinka was so generous; a gift from her arrived at his home after she died, “Took awhile to open it, somebody didn’t want us to get in that package.  But we finally got thru the layers and layers of plastic and it was a box of cookies, a tin of cookies from Judy Baar Topinka, “Merry Christmas”.  That’s what she was about, touching peoples’ hearts in small ways everyday.”

Bill Cameron, 89 WLS News.