L. Forney Wingard is a successful lawyer at Champaign, has been in active practice over fifteen years, and besides his accumulation of professional interests he has identified himself in a public spirited way with the work of the community.
His family has lived in Champaign County for a great many years. Mr. Wingard was born at Champaign June 3, 1875, a son of Benjamin F. and Mary C. (Forney) Wingard. His father was born in Indiana, son of David Wingard, who came to Champaign County in 1859. Both the father and grandfather were in the jewelry business at Champaign. Mr. Wingard’s mother was born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and is still living in Champaign County. There were three children: Anna, at home with her parents; L. Forney; and Roy, a traveling salesman.
L. Forney Wingard was graduated in 1893 from the Champaign High School, and then took the regular academic course in the University of Illinois, where he graduated A. B. in 1898. For his law course he entered the Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, and began active practice in 1901. He is director and assistant attorney of the First State Trust and Banking Company at Urbana, Illinois.
For seven years Mr. Wingard served as secretary of the Champaign Board of Education. In 1915 he was elected alderman from the fifth ward, and was one of the last board of aldermen until the commission form of government was put into effect. Mr. Wingard, who is unmarried, is affiliated with the Masonic Order, being a Knight Templar and Shriner, a member of the Sons of Veterans through his father’s service as a Union soldier, and belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church.