Bill Text: IL SR1536 | 2019-2020 | 101st General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Mourns the passing of Gene Ruoff.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Passed) 2021-01-13 - Resolution Adopted [SR1536 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2019-SR1536-Introduced.html

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SR1536 LRB101 22895 LAW 73986 r
SENATE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to
learn of the death of Gene Ruoff, who passed away on January 4,
2020 at the age of 80; and
WHEREAS, Gene Ruoff was born to Robert G. Ruoff and Thelma
L. O'Hara Ruoff on July 23, 1939; he was raised in Paducah,
Kentucky; he earned his bachelor's degree from Centre College
in Danville, Kentucky in 1961; he obtained his Master of
Science in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in
1963; he married A. LaVonne Brown in 1967; together, they
primarily lived in Oak Park and Glen Ellyn; he adopted her
children, Stephen Charles and Sharon Louise; he earned his
Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in
1970; and
WHEREAS, Gene Ruoff was a faculty member and former
administrator at the University of Illinois at Chicago; he
directed the UIC Institute for the Humanities, where he
mentored the fellows and organized programs; he also led summer
institutes for high-school teachers, including Jane Austen:
The Society and the Self, Jane Addams's Hull House Humanities
Program, The Romantics and Us, and Literature in an Age of
Revolutions; he became an associate vice chancellor in 1994; he
served as associate provost and special assistant to the

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chancellor for Information and Management Systems from 1996
until his retirement in 2009; in this position, he supervised
UIC's computer system and coordinated UIC's collaboration with
the Urbana-Champaign and Springfield campuses to create a
unified computer system; and
WHEREAS, Gene Ruoff was a prolific writer and a scholar of
English romantic literature; in 1989, he wrote Wordsworth and
Coleridge: The Making of the Major Lyrics, 1801-04; in 1991, he
covered Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility; he also edited a
number of critical essay collections; and
WHEREAS, Over a 31 year period, Gene Ruoff and his wife
passionately restored their 1893 three-story Victorian home,
which became part of the Frank Lloyd Wright Plus tour of Oak
Park; for this work, they received a State of Illinois
Restoration Grant and were awarded a prize for interior
decoration by the Historical Society of Oak Park; and
WHEREAS, Gene Ruoff is survived by his brothers, Robert A.
Ruoff and Charles O. Ruoff; his sister-in-law, Suzanne Brown;
and his daughter-in-law, Cheryl Moffitt Ruoff; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED FIRST GENERAL
ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of
Gene Ruoff and extend our sincere condolences to his family,

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friends, and all who knew and loved him; and be it further
RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
presented to the family of Gene Ruoff as an expression of our
deepest sympathy.