Beloved former Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell joins the greats on the wall of the Billy Goat Tavern

Just over a year after she filed her final column after 34 years at the Chicago Sun-Times, Mary Mitchell has achieved immortality.

On Friday afternoon, the storied journalist joined the ranks of local media greats — on the walls of the Billy Goat Tavern , where portraits hang of legendary reporters, columnists, editors and broadcasters like Studs Terkel, Richard Roeper and Mike Royko. The honor is Chicago journalism’s “unofficial hall of fame,” awarded by peers from across the city. Mitchell is only the third woman on the wall and the first woman of color.

“I am stepping into a role I’ve never played — a woman of leisure,” she wrote in her farewell column last August. That’s an understatement: Mitchell enrolled at Columbia College Chicago at 41 and joined the Sun-Times as an education re