• Voters will be seeing a question on the Nov. 4 ballot asking for a one-cent-per-dollar sales tax hike to fund school construction. The Kankakee School District 111 Board of Education on Monday unanimously gave the final piece of support needed in Kankakee County to place the proposed county school facilities tax on the ballot. The new state law allows school boards to petition for the ballot question if districts serving at least 51 percent of students in the county approve it.
• Riverside Medical Center revealed its plan for a $65 million modernization project Monday. The plan, to be completed in January 2011, will add and update existing space.
• School buses decked out by area high school students, teachers and others staff will be careening around the track to open the Kankakee County Fair on Wednesday with the grandstand feature “Extreme School Bus Figure 8.”
• While area motorists have been waiting for the widening of the one-mile stretch of Cardinal Drive that connects Armour Road with Larry Power Road, they may have to wait a while longer. The culprit? The high cost of oil. The high cost of oil is not only hitting consumers at the pump, but those who use oil to create asphalt for roads. Because asphalt takes a considerable amount of oil to produce the road mixture, the cost to the Village of Bradley could double from $300,000 to $600,000 and the administration said that may be more than it is willing to absorb.
• Local radio news reporting suffered a big blow on Friday when WKAN let go Rob Rodewald, better known by his radio name Rob West. The one-man news department for the station, his service will be “reworked” by part-timers and a full-time news staff in Quincy, Ill., according to Mike Moyers, senior vice president of STARadio, which owns eight stations, including WKAN 1320 AM, and two local FM stations, WYKT 105.5 and WXNU 106.5.
• The Beecher community has raised nearly $17,000 to help Dallas City recover from a devastating Mississippi River flood that hit the tiny Hancock County village last month.
Beecher Village President Paul Lohmann won a $5,000 donation from the Beecher Village Board Monday night. The donation pushed the total well above Lohmann’s personal goal of raising “at least $10,000 for this village which is in desperate need.”
Beecher adopted Dallas City as a “sister city” last month after record flooding hit the Midwest.
• Vintage war birds of World War II returned to the Greater Kankakee Airport on Monday afternoon for a three-day stop on The Collings Foundation’s Wings of Freedom Tour 2008. Riding the vintage bombers into Greater Kankakee were a couple of 85-year-old farm-boy fly-boys of the 1940s — each of whom flew 50 deadly and death-defying missions to liberate Europe from the original Axis of evil.
Randall Boicken, 53, of Merrillville, Ind., formerly of Grant Park, died Monday (July 28, 2008) at Methodist Hospital in Merrillville.
Frances Moylan Markiel, 91, of Braidwood, died Sunday (July 27, 2008) at the Joliet Area Community Hospice Home in Joliet.
Visitation for Lawrence D. “Larry” Baker, 61, of Bradley, will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Kankakee Chapel of the Schreffler Funeral Homes, where services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday. Burial will be in Mound Grove Gardens. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Hospice of Kankakee Valley. He died Saturday (July 26, 2008).
Doris Rita McLane Skarha, 81, a resident of Naperville since 1983, formerly of Kankakee, and Elkhart, Ind., died Saturday (July 26, 2008).
Esther A. Hull, 96, of Buckley, died Saturday (July 26, 2008).
Francis J. “Bud” Swanick, 84, of Roberts, died Friday (July 25, 2008).
• For Kathy Lambert, of Momence, having a double mastectomy after a cancerous tumor was successfully removed five years ago was a way to eliminate fear and provide reassurance that cancer may never return. And for Christina Basham, of Ashkum, the decision to have both breasts removed next year eliminates risk. Though she has no cancer, genetic testing revealed she has a breast cancer gene, and therefore, an 87 percent chance of getting the disease before age 70. “When you hear something like that, you get the feeling it’s creeping up on you,” said Basham, who has a family history of breast cancer. “You want to do whatever you need to do to be proactive.
• The St. George Community Consolidated School District 258 Board of Education approved a tentative $110,000 contract for Richard Angel, 53, to serve as superintendent. Angel comes from a superintendent’s job at Marengo-Union Elementary School District 165 in Marengo. He served previously as principal in a small, rapid-growth school district near St. Louis similar to St. George.
• A state law enacted July 1 requires dogs found roaming in packs of three or more be deemed “potentially dangerous.” Owners reclaiming their roaming pups will be required to sterilize and micro-chip the animals within two weeks or be fined $500. But some don’t think the new law has any teeth.
• Members of the Illinois National Guard’s 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team have known for about a year that 2,700 of them would be deployed to Afghanistan. On Saturday, the Kankakee-based Charlie Company held a family fun day in preparation for departure in August, to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. “They have quoted quite a few dates, changed a lot. It’s been agonizing,” said Beth Chinski, wife of Staff Sgt. Charles Chinski of Bourbonnais. He’ll be departing with about 100 other members of Charlie Company — about two-thirds of the unit.
Gertrude A. Teske, 83, of Crescent City, died Friday (July 25, 2008) at her home.
Note: This obituary notice has been posted in advance of the print edition. A complete version, which may include changes, will appear in a future edition of The Daily Journal.
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Franklyn R. Bevan died Thursday (July 24, 2008) at the age of 94, at home in Kankakee County.
Note: This obituary notice has been posted in advance of the print edition. A complete version, which may include changes, will appear in a future edition of The Daily Journal.
Read more obituaries here.
