Amid the clutter and chaos of the Illini Hall basement — home to The Daily Illini in Mike Bushman’s day — the former editor-in-chief “spent most of my waking hours and developed most as a writer, person and leader.”
The DI, says the writer, speaker, facilitator and mental health advocate, “was where Kevin Davis, Lisa Friedman, Ty Gee and dozens of others molded my interests and skills. They squeezed improvement out of me consecutive nights of Garcia’s slices from the then-adjacent pizza place.
“While it has been a long time since I last walked there, that dingy, inspiring basement has never left me.”
