Personal Ministry: Sugar Grove man makes crosses for memorials near and far

A day after the Feb. 14 shootings at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, six glimmering white crosses appeared in the snow on a hill across from Cole Hall. Five stood upright, bearing the names of the shooting victims with a rose attached; the sixth lay in the snow, nameless. “It's a very emotional time putting the crosses up,” Sugar Grove carpenter Greg Zanis said. “Just going to NIU, you just can't stop thinking how devastated these families are. When I saw the hill, it was calling out to me, this is like cross hill, it was perfect.” It wasn't the first calling for Zanis. Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., called in 1999 while Zanis was on a family vacation in Florida, and he answered by preparing 15 crosses, driving them acro