About+Mr.+Hannigan

Keith Hannigan grew up in rural New Jersey with a dairy farm for a neighbor and a bone-deep appreciation for the music of Bruce Springsteen. Realizing that there is only so much you can do with road metaphors and trees, he left the pastoral life behind to attend college at the University of Chicago where he majored in political science and discovered that cities are more interesting and complicated than the country. Four years of Medieval asceticism drove him west to California where he attended Stanford Law School, concluding that the Bay Area is a fine place to spend a vacation but no place to live. Proving that he has more loyalty than weather-sense, Hannigan returned to Chicago to practice law in 1991. He was a litigation partner in several Chicago firms, specializing in arbitrations regarding power generation and franchising.

Despite an affection for the law and a satisfying practice, in 2009 Hannigan took his wife's advice that his time would be better spent teaching history. (As a side-note, if your spouse encourages you to leave a lucrative job for one that pays less because it will make you happy, that probably means you have married the right person.) He did his student teaching at Oak Park River Forest High School, where the students were very patient with him, and earned a Masters in Education from Northwestern University. He has been happily teaching World, European and US History at Stevenson High School since 2010.

Hannigan is married to Sondra Hemeryck, a litigation partner in the Chicago office of Schiff Hardin. They have two daughters, Isabel (16) and Kate (13), both of whom are bemusedly supportive of their father's eccentricities.

In addition to an almost embarrassingly enthusiastic love of history, Hannigan is a devoted follower of the Chicago White Sox (we'll always have 2005), the Watford Hornets and the Ghana Black Stars. He can reached at khannigan@d125.organd at 847-415-4658.