CARBONDALE - Love what you do, and let what you do be shaped by what you love.

That was the message Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke delivered to an audience in the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Student Center Wednesday evening.

The Chicago native, whose career has been marked by several significant achievements - including helping to form the International Special Olympics and reforming the state's juvenile justice system under former Gov. Jim Edgar - talked about her career during a speech. The talk was part of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute's 2007 Jeanne Hurley Simon Lecture Series, named for the late senator's late wife.

See an audio slideshow of the university's unveiling of Jeanne Hurley Simon's papers collection

From Burke's days as a physical education teacher in Chicago to her current appointment on the state supreme court, the justice said her overarching goal has been to speak up for people, especially those who are impoverished or abused. Burke was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2006. She will run for the seat this February, she said.

Chief among her labors in the legal field, Burke has spoken out for special needs children, a personal interest as much as a public one, since one of her adoptive sons has special needs.

"In many ways, this is what I've been doing since high school," Burke said.

Burke began working with special needs children at SIUC's Touch of Nature facility in the 1960s, while training for a grant-funded program addressing such people for the Chicago park district.

The work would lead her to propose a citywide event, allowing special needs children to participate in a number of games. She would later revise the proposal, taking the idea into the international field in what would become known as the Special Olympics.

Burke said she recently traveled to China, where the games were hosted only for the second time outside of the U.S. It was startling to see how the games and people's attitudes toward special needs individuals have changed since she first started working with them 40 years ago.

"If we don't stand for children, then we don't stand for much," Burke declared, challenging the audience to continue the evolution of assisting both new generations of special needs individuals and also those who are now aging.

caleb.hale@thesouthern.com

351-5090