Beginning about a year from now the Little Theater at Oak Park and River Forest High School will be known, for the next 10 years, as the Armstrong Family Little Theater in recognition of a $100,000 donation from Doug and Betsy Armstrong. The donation, made through the Imagine Foundation, is one of five naming rights donations the Imagine Foundation has received as part of its fundraising campaign to support the Project 2 construction project at OPRF that is revamping the southeast corner of the building. Imagine also plans to raise money for future parts of the Imagine plan of revamping the OPRF campus.
Doug Armstrong, who graduated from OPRF in 1980 the same year as Imagine Foundation president Stephen Schuler, was active in theater when he was a student at OPRF. He had leading roles in the plays Tartuffe and 10 Little Indians (now known as And Then There Were None).
“I was quite involved with theater so I was in a number of performances there so I have good memories and felt it was a big part of my development, if you will,” Armstrong told Wednesday Journal in a telephone interview.
Armstrong, who is the former chief operating officer of the West Monroe Partners, a business consulting firm, said that he and his wife wanted to honor his family’s three generation relationship with OPRF.
Doug’s father Edwin Armstrong graduated from OPRF in 1938. After graduating from Knox College Edwin Armstrong served in the Marine Corps during World War II and fought in the battle of Iwo Jima. He served in the same regiment that raised the flag on Mount Suribachi that resulted in an iconic photo. After the war Edwin Armstrong went to law school at Northwestern and had a long career as a lawyer. He served as the president of Huskie Booster Club, served on and was president of the Oak Park Elementary School District 97 Board of Education, was an Eagle Scout and served as president of the Thatcher Woods Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
“It really means a lot in recognition for all that my dad did,” Armstrong said of the naming the Little Theater after his family.
Armstrong’s two children, Andrei and Svetlana, graduated from OPRF in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Svetlana did poetry readings in the Little Theater. Armstrong’s three siblings, Cathy, Diane and Greg are also OPRF graduates.
“I think it’s really a nice way to remember the impact that OPRF had on us, our family,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong said he had been planning to make a significant donation to the Imagine Foundation’s fundraising campaign anyway but when Imagine Foundation Executive Director Heidi Ruehle showed him the Imagine Foundation list of naming rights options the Little Theater jumped out at him because of his fond memories of performing there while he was a student at OPRF and the desire to honor his father and the rest of his family.
“The gift would have been sizable without the naming option,” said Armstrong, who just this month sold his Frank Lloyd Wright designed house on Superior Street in Oak Park and now divides his time between Las Vegas, Chicago and Pepin, Wisconsin. “Obviously with the naming option there was a set price and terms and all that.”
The Little Theater is not part of Projects 1 or 2. It is only scheduled to receive a lighting update in Project 4, but the Little Theater naming rights were on the Imagine Foundation’s Naming Recognition Guide because originally another family had expressed interest in it.
The Imagine Foundation has committed to raising $12.5 million for Project 2 and has a goal of raising $15 million. It has thus far given $4 million to OPRF and handed over its fourth $1 million check to the school at the Nov. 20 meeting of the OPRF District 200 Board of Education.
“I’m feeling really confident we’re going to reach our goal,” Ruehle said. “We would like to have all the money raised by the end of next year, if possible, and it will take a few years after to grant all the funds to the high school because people will be paying their multiyear gifts and pledges.”
Ruehle said that she is pleased with how fundraising is going.
“I’m hopeful that we will have over $11 million by the end of this year,” Ruehle said. “I’ll have a more exact number once our annual appeal has been completed and those donations come in.”
According to the Imagine Foundation naming rights guide there are 21 different naming rights options ranging from $2 million in exchange for the naming rights to the new outdoor track facility and the new South Fields to $25,000 for naming rights to the new costume shop, the prop shop or a renovated classroom.
Ruehle said that naming rights, which are a common fundraising tool, are attractive to some donors.
“It’s really beneficial to have them available,” Ruehle said. “It does matter to some people. A lot of people aren’t interested in naming rights. The bulk of our donors are not aligned with naming rights even those who have given at an amount that would be aligned with those but I think it is just a nice opportunity to honor special people.”
What else has been named at OPRF?
The other naming rights that have been granted, all of which start no later than Dec. 1, 2026 and last 10 years, have been for the new weight room, a new science lab, the new Green room and a new yoga/meditation classroom.
A science lab, which was part of Project 1, will be called the Rachel Gamble Smylie Science Lab. Smylie was a 2011 graduate of OPRF who was tragically killed in 2014 when she was travelling in Namibia as a 21-year-old University of Michigan student who was studying in South Africa. $100,000 is being donated over four years by Rachel’s parents, Oak Park residents Sallie and Mark Smylie.
The new Green Room will be named after 2017 OPRF graduate Elizabeth Maguire after a pledge of $50,000 by Maguire’s grandparents Paul and Leah Beckwith. Elizabeth Maguire was a frequent performer in plays and musicals in her time at OPRF.
The new weight room will be named after former OPRF football coach Gary Olson in exchange for a $500,000 donation from a host of donors. Stephen Schuler was coached by Olson. Ruehle said that the Imagine Foundation is about two thirds of the way toward the $500,000 goal and that donors to the Imagine Foundation can specify on the foundation’s website that they would like their donation to count towards the weight room naming rights. Olson died in 1999 after having a heart attack while doing a workout on a Stairmaster at the school. He was just 54.
The new yoga/meditation room will be named the Saddleton Family Yoga and Meditation Center in honor of the Saddleton family of River Forest. Elise and Simon Saddleton, who have three children, all OPRF alumnae, donated $50,000 in 2024.
Bob Skolnik
