Wayne Strnad

Wayne was born and raised in Chicago.

The first 14 years of his life were filled with  excitement and experimentation in mathematics and astronomy.

By age 10 Wayne had built his first optical telescope  under the guidance of the staff at the Adler Planetarium.  This  was during a period when they offered mirror grinding for the  general public.  He also attended several adult classes held at  the planetarium.

In the mid 1960’s his interest diversified to  include physics and philosophy, reading books that were previously  banned from reading by such authors as Bertrand Russell, who later  came to be called the Father of Set Theory.  In his youth,  Wayne would devour Math books at a rate of about one every two to  three weeks.  He had a quest to learn as much as a could about  math, physics and astronomy.

Also, in the first half of the 1960’s he became  aware of the disparity between races and how people were not being  treated equally.  For him, the point of confusion was that the  priests in the church preached about Jesus Christ and love.   Yet, the same people that attended these services who apparently  agreed with what they were hearing because they would continually  come back for more, were themselves part of a problem.   Remember, the year is around 1963.

Dr. Martin Luther King came to the forefront of  a movement that was later to be called the Civil Rights Movement.

High School

In 1964 Wayne started  high school.  He attended Gordon Tech High  School .

During his first year at the school he worked  on a woodworking project that was entered into statewide competition  held in Normal ,Illinois .   His project, a hand carving, won an award.

At age 15 he was asked to teach his fellow  students and upperclassmen how to use a slide rule - not by the  conventional "scientific notation" method but by a method he  discovered himself. 

He graduated magna cum laude in 1968.

College

In the fall of 1968 Wayne attended DePaul University.   His major was mathematics and his minor was physics although he was  only a few credit hours away from a double major.

During his first year in college he noticed  that there simply was not an organization that was composed of both  males and females.  At that time there were organizations that  were for men only, called fraternities, and for women only, called  sororities.  So one day Wayne and two other people decided to  create an organization composed of men and women - a fratority.   It's name was Tau Omicron Kappa or TOK for short.

Unlike the purpose of other groups, it was set  up to help people.  We ran food drives, clothing drives and  other activities that helped the community.  Individual members  also worked with Little Brothers of the Poor and DePaul's food  pantry.

In 1972 Wayne graduated from DePaul University.   He graduated magna cum laude.