(MARENGO) Rob Sherman, who died over the weekend in a crash of his small plane in Marengo, operated a business helping people build aircraft from kits.
But the 63-year-old was better known as a colorful political activist and Green Party candidate — some might say gadfly — who called journalists and introduced himself as “Rob Sherman, your favorite atheist,” the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.
At one time, he had license plates that spelled out ATHEIST.
Though he came in for derision as a self-promoter, he challenged the use of government-sponsored Christmas creches and displays and anything he perceived as a co-mingling of church and state.
Early Saturday, fire crews responded after his single-engine plane was spotted in an area off Meyer Road, just north of Pleasant Grove Road, according to Marengo firefighter Joe Taylor.
The Zenair CH 601 crashed under “unknown circumstances” sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning, according to Taylor and FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro.
Authorities said late Monday that the aircraft was a manufactured model, not a home-built version.
A Monday autopsy found Mr. Sherman, of Poplar Grove, died of multiple injuries from the mishap, which is being investigated by the FAA and NTSB.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Sherman was constantly in the headlines for atheism activism.
As Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper put it in 1998, “He has battled towns from South Holland to Deerfield to Zion to Palatine to Highland, Ind., and Wauwatosa, Wis., over public displays of religious symbols on water towers, on government property and on official village seals.”
Mr. Sherman also filed suit against the Boy Scouts after he and his son, Richard, were denied membership because they refused to recognize a “duty to God.”
— Chicago Sun-Times
