August 21, 2025

Help us raise funds to help the kids have fun at Camp “I AM ME”

This event aims to raise money for “Camp I Am Me,” a camp for young burn victims operated by the Illinois Fire Safety Alliance. Their website says, “No other Camp I Am Me program has received greater attention from the fire service, the medical community, the general public, and the media than Summer Camp. Camp provides the setting for child burn survivors to share their common experiences while being able to play and not feel self-conscious about their scars. The physical, psychological, and emotional benefits to the campers have been enough to inspire a long list of eager volunteers and contributors.”

The Terrence Hoyle Memorial Golf Open remembers a great leader in the Fire Investigation community. Terrence R. Hoyle was a nationally known arson investigator whose expertise was regularly tapped by the Chicago Fire Department and insurance companies and law firms involved in litigation, often over catastrophic fires. Together with a son, Stephen, Mr. Hoyle operated Hoyle & Associates, a private fire investigation firm in Bensenville. The elder Hoyle also headed the Illinois Chapter of the International Association of Arson Investigators and was a past president of the Chicago Special Agents Association. Mr. Hoyle, an Evanston native, began his fire sleuthing career in 1961 after service in the Marine Corps. He is credited with helping organize the Chicago Fire Department’s bomb and arson unit. Working under the direction of John Kennedy & Associates in the 1960s, Mr. Hoyle, early on in his career, recognized the importance of education in the nuances of fires and their telltale causes. As an instructor of fire causes, he emphasized training to accurately pinpoint and report on how and where fires start. Of the many fires over Mr. Hoyle’s 37-year career, two stand out: the MGM Grand Hotel inferno in Las Vegas, in which 87 people died on Nov. 21, 1980, and a 1977 fire that claimed the lives of 161 people inside the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Ky., near Cincinnati. He demonstrated that the supper club fire was not caused by faulty aluminum wiring, as alleged in lawsuits brought by survivors of the victims. In the MGM case, he established that the hotel’s choice of wall coverings and furniture did not amount to negligence or contribute to the fire.