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Timothy Walter Joranko, 41, of Fairfax, Virginia, formerly of Albion, who was an attorney at the U. S. Department of Justice representing the rights of Native Americans, died of a spinal cord tumor on Wednesday, June 5, 2002 at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. Tim was born May 16, 1961, in Royal Oak, Michigan to Frank and Joyce Joranko. Both of his parents had graduated from Albion College, where his father had been an all-around award winning athlete, and Tim moved to Albion in 1973 when his father became the Albion College head coach for football and baseball. Tim graduated from Albion High School as Valedictorian of his class, and also played football and baseball. Tim was awarded a National Merit Scholarship to Northwestern University where he majored in political science and played on the baseball team. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Harvard Law School where he earned a Juris Doctor degree, and upon graduation, he went to work as an attorney in Chicago for the firm of Mayer, Brown and Piatt. In 1988 he served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala teaching children as a planner and director of youth activities. There he met the love of his life, Aida, who was a principal at one of the schools he assisted. Tim and Aida married in Albion, in 1991, and then moved to 'Chicago where he worked as an attorney for the City of Chicago. After a brief time in Chicago, Tim was invited to serve as a tribal attorney for the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, and he and Aida lived on the reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota for two years beginning in 1992. Maria Helen, his daughter was born on the reservation in 1994. He taught Indian Law as a visiting professor at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit for a year prior to returning to work for the City of Chicago from 1995 to 1998. Among his accomplishments was winning two Illinois Supreme Court cases on the same day, said Lawrence Rosenthal, his supervisor at the time. Frank Walter, his son was born in Chicago, in 1996. Tim then moved to the Justice Department where he has served as a Deputy Director in the Office of Tribal Justice. He has argued major Native American cases, including several before the U. S. Supreme Court and has made significant contributions in the area of tribal justice. Tim's life was dedicated to serving others - particularly Native American communities, as well as the people of Guatemala and Chicago. He was a tireless and powerful advocate for the disenfranchised and will be remembered as a wonderful father, husband and friend.
Tim modeled fall clothing in the September 1980 issue of Playboy magazine:
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Jody Bilicke
Thinking of Tim today (June 2, 2019) as his dad's memorial service was Saturday. In Tim's own words, submitted for our 10-year class reunion.
The first thing I did after graduating from Albion High School was go to college at Northwestern University near Chicago, Illinois. There I played baseball, studied political science and Russian language, was pres.ident of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, danced in a thirty-hour dance marathon, and drank a lot of beer. I was elecgted to the Phi Beta Kappa and Pi Sigma Alpha honor societies, graduated "with distinction", and received a varsity letter for baseball. During the summer of 1981, I spent a month sailing off the coast of Maine in an Outward Bound school. During the summer of 1982, I worked for the U.S. Department of State in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs. In 1983, I graduated from college and spent the next three years studying at Harvard Law School. During that time, I worked as a law clerk for private law firms in Chicago and Portland,Maine and at the Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts in Boston. I graduated cum laude and drank more beer. The summer after law school, 1986, I studied for the Illinois Bar Exam and travelled - including backpacking trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and Sierra Nevadas in California. I passed the Illinois Bar and became a lawyer in 1986. I worked the next two years as a litigation attorney at the twelfth largest law firm in the world in Chicago. It is called "Mayer, Brown & Platt", even though Mr. Mayer, Mr. Brown and Mr. Platt are either too old or to dead to work there anymore.. The highlight of those tow years was the sea-kayaking trip I took to Alaska. I drank still more beer. In November 1988, I gave up imitating characters on "L.A. Law" after developing more gray hairs than a 27-year-old should and losing a lot of sleep and quit my job as an attorney. I joined the U.S. Peace Corps, an agency of the federal government that works in poor countries throughout the world. The Peace Corps sent to me Guatemala where I have leanred to speak Spanish and now coach basketball, teach physical education and health to Guatemalan school children, and yes, occasionally drink beer or two (although now it's really hard to get pretzels). Ten years ago you all voted me "Most Likely to Succeed" for the Class of '79. Shortly after that, I gave an address at our graduation as Co-Valdictorian in which I told you all to "try to be yourselves". When I gave up trying to make lots of money in Chicago and started helping the children of Guatemala, I finally began listening to my own words and "being myself" - only then did I begin to "succeed".