Today’s Costa Alumni Profile features Eugene Tadie from Costa’s Class of 1970, and Knox’s Class of 1974.
Gene was in the next to last graduating class at Costa. There were 68 students in 1970 graduating year.
I first got to know Gene as freshman at Knox College. We both entered Knox in the Fall of 1970. Gene had a distinguished career as a student at Knox, majoring in Political Science. It was obvious at that time that he had a real passion for government and politics.
His career of public service in our government has been very impressive. He has served all over the world helping formulate American policies. Today, he has “retired” into the world of academia as a college professor.
I have been fortunate to reconnect with Gene thru social media. His posts on current events and world affairs provide education and insight. It is my hope that people like Gene will be given the opportunity to guide U.S. policies in the future.
I am so pleased that Gene was willing to take the time to share some of his memories and inspirations. He is an example of one of the many GHS and Costa grads who have gone out into the world and done great things!
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| Senior Picture- 1970 |
Eugene Tadie’s Initial Thoughts
I very much appreciate Evan Massey’s kindness in allowing me to tell you a bit about my life, with a focus on my high school years at Costa High School and subsequently my college years at Knox College, and my time in government service and then consulting, with a bit of teaching added to the mix. Any sins of commission or omission are entirely mine.
Roots in Galesburg
I was born and raised in Galesburg, and my early education followed an arc familiar to any Catholic kid in town at the time — a certificate from the upstart Immaculate Heart of Mary grade school (as opposed to our arch-rival, the established St. Joseph’s Academy across town). My strongest memory at IHM is of getting into trouble with my 4th grade teacher for objecting to what I deemed ‘collective punishment’ for someone else’s throwing spitballs in class. I suppose this foretold something of a contrarian streak that forms a line of dubious continuity in my life.
Activities at Costa
At Costa, I tried to play football (my coach once told me I’d never really be good at it, but that I could get better — he was correct on the former point and woefully wrong on the second). It was a minor miracle that I got a JV letter in football. I also plodded along on the Costa track team. For better or worse, my sports career ended abruptly at the start of my junior year with torn cartilage in my right knee.
I fared better in other extra-curricular activities at Costa. I worked on the editorial page of the school newspaper, where my opposition to girls having to wear school uniforms while boys did not somehow failed to endear me to the principal (there’s that pesky contrarian streak again). I also was President of the Student Council my senior year, my first and only venture into electoral politics at any level.
Academic Inspirations
But it was in academics where I finally found a home, and for this I give full credit to the Sisters of Providence and especially the Christian Brothers who roamed and ruled the hallways and classrooms at Costa. Brothers Stan, Norman, and Theodore brought history, English, and religion alive for me; Sister Marie Monica introduced me to the language and culture of the Hispanic world. Thanks to them and others, I graduated as co-Valedictorian of the class.
Kindness of the Christian Brothers
I also want to thank the Christian Brothers for their many kindnesses and courtesies to me, particularly in my last two years at Costa. I like to think that they must have seen something worth salvaging in the personally befuddled, somewhat lost young man I was at the time. They are the first entries in my personal pantheon of heroes.
Choosing Knox College
Evan asked me directly what led me to stay in Galesburg for college. The answer has several layers.
The first is my only critique of Costa — college counseling and guidance was a weak point, and slanted heavily to Catholic colleges and universities. Frankly, even in high school, I was beginning to have my doubts about the Church. And so I applied only to Notre Dame among the schools recommended to me.I also applied to Bradley University in Peoria, which to be sure wasn’t much of a geographic stretch. My third application was to Knox College in the ‘burg.
Why Knox? I was a legacy, my mother having graduated from there in 1950 with a BS in Nursing through a joint program administered with Rush Medical School. And Knox also offered me the best financial package of the three schools I applied to. (Here I must note something few people know about me… Knox’s offer left me short $1,250 annually. It was an astronomical sum to me at the time, and in today’s dollars — according to Google’s Gemini — that would be slightly over $41,000, which is still nothing to sneeze at. A local lawyer and banker, whom I will not name here, co-signed my student loan application every year when no one else could or would. He is another in my personal pantheon of heroes.)
But the real reason is simpler still. By my senior year at Costa, I had exhausted available electives and, because we had an open campus, I was left with a surfeit of time on my hands, even accounting for my part-time work. Brother Stan suggested I ask permission to audit courses at Knox, and the Dean of Students said yes.
Impressions & Inspiration of Knox
Sitting in on lectures at Knox was a real eye-opener for me. I was amazed by the amount of work — reading, exams, and papers — required of regular students. And absolutely dazzled by the lectures and the give and take between them and the faculty. I was especially impressed by John Houston, who taught International Relations, and Bob Siebert, who taught Comparative Politics. Though it seems strange to me even now, I decided at 18 that I wanted to be ‘just like them’. That’s how I wound up going to Knox College.
In my 4 years at Knox, I had the opportunity to get to study and work with some of the finest men and women I have ever met. In the Political Science department, Lane Sunderland and Phil Haring would join Houston and Siebert as mentors. In the Economics department, Roy Anderson would join their ranks. I graduated in 1974 with a BA in Political Science, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Department’s Adams Prize.
After Knox
From Knox, I went on for an MA (1976) and PhD (1981) in Political Science at Northern Illinois University. My mentor and doctoral advisor was Larry Finkelstein. He graduated from Columbia University in 1944 at age 19, served as an intern to Ambassador Ralph Bunche at the San Francisco conference that established the United Nations in 1945, was an Executive Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace throughout the 1950s, and served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. Larry resigned in 1965 in protest of the accelerating American debacle in Vietnam. He is another personal hero.
Government Service
My hopes of full-time university teaching never materialized and I began work as a Soviet weapons analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency in 1980. Three years later, I entered the Foreign Service of the US Department of State. My overseas service included Mexico City, NATO headquarters in Brussels, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Sarajevo (on detail to the Organization of Security and Cooperation for Europe), and Winnipeg (where I opened the Consulate four days before 9/11). Domestically, I worked in Washington on the staffs of Secretaries Eagleburger and Christopher, and the Canada Desk of the European Bureau; in New York, I was the Executive Officer to Ambassador Albright at the US Mission to the United Nations. (Reading this, you might begin to understand why my late father-in-law once said I couldn’t hold a steady job.)
I left government service in 2002 and immediately went to work as a consultant with Booz, Allen, Hamilton. My contracts included work with DIA, the Joint Warfare Analysis Center, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, among others.
I retired from consulting in 2019.
Today
In retirement, I teach occasional courses on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence Methods in two departments at George Mason University.
The two finest people I have ever met both agreed to marry me, much to my delight and no small amount of surprise. I have one daughter.
Advice for Today’s Students
If I have any advice for you, it is this: Surround yourself with the finest people you can meet, and learn from them. Work hard. Love deeply. Be prepared for adversity and open to joy. Live a life work living with passion, grace, and kindness.
Editor’s Note- Please pass on names /contact info of other GHS or Costa grads that I should reach out to do an Alumni Profile. Evan Massey- 309-368-0008.
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