Mark Sorensen

After teaching in the Decatur Public Schools for 13 years, Mark Sorensen served as an administrator for 21 years at the Illinois State Archives, where he worked with historic documents, created traveling exhibits and wrote about the history of the state Capitol. In addition to serving on numerous boards and commissions in Macon County, he served as president of the Illinois State Historical Society and received its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mark holds graduate degrees in both history and library science, and is also the recipient of the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award from the Illinois Humanities Council, and was named an Illinois Library Luminary by the Illinois Library Association.  Since 1990, he has written over three dozen state and local history articles including:  Racist Terror Lynching in Illinois; How Staley Starchmen Became Chicago Bears; History of Women's Suffrage in Illinois; The Moweaqua Coal Mine Disaster of 1932; and The Modern Ku Klux Klan in Illinois.

Mark and his wife Kathy have lived in Decatur since 1969 where he currently serves as the Official Macon County Historian and president of the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Guild.