Rich Wojcikowski, the 57-year-old manager who ran the day-to-day operations of Bookie's Chicago in West Beverly, has died following a crash on Governors Highway north of University Parkway in University Park. Wojcikowski, who lived in Park Forest, was killed shortly before 1 p.m. on September 4, according to the Will County Coroner's Office.
According to ABC7 Chicago, Wojcikowski was officially pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. on the stretch of Governors Highway where the collision occurred, a corridor that, per Cook County transportation records, serves as a primary commuter artery linking southern Cook County communities like Park Forest with University Park in Will County. Bookie's owner Keith Lewis identified Wojcikowski as the person killed in the crash and said he had worked at the store for nearly a decade, describing him as the backbone of the West Beverly bookstore.
Lewis praised Wojcikowski as genuine, capable, professional and organized, and said Wojcikowski was the yin to his yang. “It will be nearly impossible to go on without” him, Lewis said, according to the same report. Wojcikowski managed the store's employees, built storage and other fixtures inside the shop, and represented Bookie's throughout the community — attending school book fairs, hand-delivering books to customers, and delivering checks to community organizations.
A Former Teacher Who Championed Independent Writers
Before joining Bookie's, Wojcikowski taught English to high school students, and Chicago-area authors have since praised him for championing independent writers and helping build Bookie's into a South Side cultural fixture, according to Patch. His work extended well beyond the sales floor. Per Southwest Regional Publishing, Wojcikowski managed Bookie's school book fair program, which returned 50 percent of fair sales directly back to host schools and donated $2,454 to local schools over a 10-day span in June 2025.
He also oversaw the store's customer trade-in program, which offers discounts of up to 40 percent on purchases when shoppers donate gently used books — a core operational feature Patch's reporting on the store's Western Avenue expansion described as central to how Bookie's does business. Lewis said the store plans to provide a memorial book when it reopens, allowing community members to sign or leave notes about Wojcikowski, which will ultimately be given to his family. He is survived by a wife and three children.
A Bookstore Built Over Nearly Four Decades
Bookie's has deep roots in Chicago's South Side. The store was originally established in 1989 by Larry Kroff, sold in 2006 to clerk Allison Platt, and acquired in January 2015 by Lewis, a former Chicago Public Schools teacher, according to DNAinfo. The store relocated in July 2017 to its current 2,000-square-foot storefront at 10324 S. Western Ave. in Beverly, a move that doubled its space and expanded its new-book inventory.
Bookie's also once operated a second location in suburban Homewood before closing it in May 2023 to consolidate operations at the West Beverly flagship, according to the Homewood-Flossmoor Chronicle. Wojcikowski's steady management helped make that consolidated store successful even as independent bookstores across Chicago's South Side have had to adapt to changing neighborhood foot traffic and shifting commercial conditions in recent years, as Hoodline has previously reported.
Safety Concerns Along the Crash Corridor
The intersection of Illinois Route 50, also known as Governors Highway, and University Parkway had already drawn attention from state officials before the crash. Illinois Department of Transportation planning documents show the intersection was designated for safety and signalization improvements during regional corridor studies. Details of the crash investigation, including what vehicles were involved and what caused the collision, have not yet been released by University Park police.
Back in Beverly, the loss has rippled through the neighborhood bookstore Wojcikowski helped keep running for years. Lewis's tribute, delivered in the wake of the crash, captured how central Wojcikowski had become to the shop's identity: genuine, organized, and, in Lewis's words, irreplaceable as the yin to his yang.
