Guten Tag!

I am Co Leber, librarian at St. Rita School since August 2006, two weeks after retiring as a journalist at the Rockford Register Star. I spent most of my 36-year career in Features as a reporter, environmental columnist, food editor, copy editor and assistant editor and handled online work. I had stints in Editorial and the library. I continue to do freelance work for Rockford Woman magazine and write occasional guest editorials.

A Rockford native, I’m an E-RAB, and earned my bachelor of arts at the University of Wisconsin – Platteville. I studied German at the Goethe Institute in Iserlohn, Germany, and did graduate work in history at Northern Illinois University. My family was among the original members of Holy Family (then Cathedral). My husband and I were wed in the gym, which served as the church. I have been a Eucharistic minister for several years.

My experience in Germany piqued an insatiable interest in other cultures and lands. I studied with students from more than four dozen countries from Afghanistan and Ethiopia to Philippines and Canada including my Indonesian roommate and bridge partners from Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Burma and Korea. This has shaped by world view.

My ever-growing reliance on Jesus keeps me positive and joyful with gratitude for all my blessings despite the speed bumps of several significant losses.

I’m old enough to remember a time before McDonald’s, television and stores open on Sundays, but young enough to recall polio vaccine on sugar cubes, family-oriented Sundays and glory-day baseball years. That means GO YANKEES!! Although as a nod to my Chicago-born and bred husband of 35 years I support the North-siders. And what is that thing called football? Try the real game – World Cup soccer.