CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Over the weekend, six distinguished women from Illinois were recognized at the University of Illinois for their outstanding professional accomplishments and contributions to public service.

The Order of Lincoln honors those whose efforts have significantly improved life in Illinois. The 2025 honorees were celebrated on Saturday, May 3, at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

This year’s honorees include:

• Olympic speed skater Bonnie Blair, born in Champaign
• Poet Sandra Cisernos
• Architect Jeanne Gang, U of I graduate
• Emmy-award winning Chicago journalist Carol Marin, U of I graduate
• Julieanna Richardson, whose organization The HistoryMakers collects African-American oral histories
• former CEO of Chicago Public Schools Janice K. Jackson

The six recipients are now among the more than 350 distinguished Illinois residents who have joined the Order of Lincoln over the last fifty years.

Bonnie Blair, who hails from Champaign, made history as the first American woman to secure five gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games. She debuted at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and later claimed her first gold in the 500-meter speed skating race at the Calgary Games in 1988. In the 1992 Winter Olympics held in Albertville, Blair won two more golds, and she excelled again in 1994 at the Lillehammer Games, earning an additional two gold medals.

After retiring from speed skating, Blair became a motivational speaker and an advocate for the Alzheimer’s Association, the American Brain Tumor Association and the Leukemia Association, in honor of her family members that had been impacted.

Jeanne Gang graduated from Illinois with a degree in architecture in 1986. Since then, she’s founded international architecture and urban design practice Studio Gang and is known for designs across the Americas and Europe, including the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History; a new United States Embassy in Brazil; and an expansion of the Clinton Presidential Center.

Gang is also a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and has been named one of TIME Magazine’s most influential people in the world. In 2024, she served as the U of I’s commencement speaker.

Carol Marin graduated from the University of Illinois and went on to become a journalist and Emmy Award-winning reporter. She’s worked at WMAQ-TV Chicago, CBS News, the Chicago Sun-Times, among others. Marin has won numerous awards, including multiple Peabody Awards, the Gracie Award, as well as two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards. In 2016, DePaul University launched the Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence with Marin as co-director.

Sandra Cisernos is a poet and writer who explores the lives of the working-class. Her novel “The House on Mango Street” has sold over eight million copies, has been translated into over twenty-five languages, and is required reading in elementary, high school, and universities across the nation.

Julieanna Richardson is the founder and president of The HistoryMakers, a Chicago-based nonprofit, which is a nonpartisan, digital, archival collection of African-American oral histories. Richardson started her career as an attorney for a Chicago law firm. Later, she became a cable administrator for the City of Chicago Office of Cable Communications, founded Shop Chicago, and created a production company. In 1999 Richardson began compiling African American oral histories. Now, her archive contains over 348 Illinoisians, more than any other state on record.

Janice Jackson, EdD, is the CEO of Hope Chicago and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS). She also founded and led two Chicago public high schools. Her 22-year career with CPS is most notable for the district’s results in advancing equitable student outcomes. Now, her work with Hope Chicago seeks to create economic mobility for disinvested communities through scholarships.

You can read more about the event and this year’s honorees here.