Phil Kadner was working his turf on Chicago’s South Side, investigating corruption in the Dixmoor Park District, when he visited the woman who had blown the whistle.

Her name was Alice, and she was a 65-year-old grandmother raising her grandson. Alice was poor and on welfare, an asthmatic with an oxygen tank.

Kadner, a Daily Southtown columnist and a 1974 Northern Star alum, knocked on her door. Alice called for him to come in. To his surprise, there were no locks. He stepped inside and climbed the stairs, finding his source in bed.

“Alice,” Kadner scolded, “whaddya doing leaving your door open?”

“If I hadn’t seen your bald, little beady head comin’ up those stairs,” she answered, revealing a concealed gun, “I would’ve blown your head off.”

Her courage – and Kadner’s columns on the theft of $1 million from the now-dissolved district – resulted in prison sentences for two former district presidents and a park district police chief.

“It’s an amazing thing, this job,” Kadner said. “The greatest satisfaction is the people you get to meet, and I don’t mean people in high places. I mean the average guy who does extraordinary things, and there are more of them out there than you’d expect.”

Kadner, whose column has appeared five days a week since 1985, started at the then-Southtown Economist in 1975. His countless honors since include the 2003 Freedom of the Press Award, a 2003 Chicago Headline Club ethics in journalism award and the 2002 Studs Terkel Award.

Ironically, a life in news began near the end of collegiate career devoted mostly to sports. Kadner briefly served as news editor before taking the police beat.

His mission remains simple: inform, entertain and have fun.

“I have almost unprecedented freedom for a columnist. People might find that hard to believe, but I think I’ve gotten less interference from my bosses over the years than almost any columnist in town. I write what I see fit,” he said. “I’m very lucky to have a job you like going to all the time. I’ll probably retire in this job, and I don’t see that happening for maybe 40 or 50 more years. They’re going to have to ship me out.”

Kadner and wife Jeannie live in Orland Park.