Kewanee History from the Star Courier Archives, compiled by Dave Clarke

15 years agoFriday, Aug. 17, 2007

• A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Thursday at the new Black Hawk College Community Education Center in the 400 block of East Third Street. It replaces the Outreach Center which was housed in a former car wash on South Main Street.

• Kewanee pilot Dan Johnson of Starved Rock Air Tours has announced that he will once again be providing helicopter rides over Kewanee during the Hog Days celebration. Johnson offered an aerial view to festivalgoers for the first time last year.

25 years agoSaturday, Aug. 16, 1997

• Gov. Jim Edgar is coming to Kewanee today to announce that the city has been chosen as the site of a new, 400-bed juvenile prison which will cost $45 million to build on Kentville Road just east of Compaction America. The facility will provide 280 full-time jobs. (The facility is now the Illinois Department of Corrections Life Skills Re-entry Center and houses just over 200 individuals in custody learning ways to make a successful transition from incarceration back to society. — D.C.)

• SOS — Students on Stage — will present “The Library Patrol and the Foul Stench of Crime,” written by Austin Boswell and Dan DeSmit on Sunday, Aug. 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church. (Students on Stage was formed in November of 1990 by “Kewaneevision,” a community planning project, as a way to improve the quality of social life for the youth of Kewanee. SOS was open to youth between fifth and 12th grades with Deanna Baird, Ann Guzzardo and Wanda Kieft as leaders and Janice Boswell as the director. All had previous experience with the Black Hawk East Community Players. “Library Patrol” was written by two SOS members, Austin and Dan, and was billed as a take-off on the TV cop series “Dragnet.” The pair also wrote several sequels, including “Foul Stench of Crime.” — D.C.)

50 years agoThursday, Aug. 17, 1972

• The Kewanee Knights Junior Drum and Bugle Corps has announced the lineup for the Music and Motion show to be held Sept. 2 at Kewanee High School Stadium in conjunction with the Hog Capital Festival. Scheduled to compete are the Thurderbolts of Cedarburg, Wis., the Ottawa (Ill.) Crusaders, the Phantom Regiment of Rockford, Ill., the Imperials of Skokie, Ill., and the Mariners of Green Bay, Wis. Sponsors have been obtained so the corps can march in the parade Saturday afternoon. (Checking the Tuesday, Sept. 5, 1972 Star Courier, we find that the Imperials of Skokie won the show edging the Phantom Regiment by .15 of a point. The Knights performed an exhibition and were not in competition. — D.C.)

• The Boar Power Sales Center will open soon on Route 78 north of Annawan. The center, which is run by a subdivision of Monsanto Corp., is designed to enable each producer to select the boar which best fits his swine herd. The air-conditioned, carpeted and paneled facility features five individual viewing booths from which the producer selects the boar he wants. The booths look into five individual concrete-floored pens in which five separate crossbreed board sold by the center are displayed. The Henry County facility is the only one planned for Illinois.

75 years agoSaturday, Aug. 16, 1947

• Wayne Slutz, grounds superintendent, announced yesterday that everything that is possible to do is being done to make the Bureau County Fair, which opens Tuesday in Princeton, a safe place top go and take your children. Last night, D.D.T. was sprayed throughout the fairgrounds in an effort to keep the insects to a minimum. All of the buildings were also sprayed with the same insecticide. This is being done to safeguard the public against the contagious diseases which are prevalent at this time and particularly, it is the desire of the fair board that all threat of polio be stopped. (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, commonly known as DDT, was originally developed as an insecticide and was used in the second half of World War II to limit the spread of the insect-born diseases malaria and typhus among civilians and troops. By 1945, DDT was available for public use in the U.S. and promoted as an agricultural and household pesticide. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring” called attention to concerns about the harm DDT did to wildlife and the environment and was a possible cause of cancer. Public outcry eventually led to a ban on the use of DDT in 1972. — D.C.)

• The Wyoming Community High School athletic field in the east part of the city is to be lighted for the first time for night football games held this fall. (The field is now the home of the Stark County Rebels and was named for former coach Gary Johnson shortly after his death in 2006. He coached teams on the field for more than 30 years, beginning with the Wyoming Indians, then the Rebels after the consolidation of Toulon and Wyoming schools in 1992. He retired in 2002. — D.C.)

100 years agoThursday, Aug. 17, 1922

• Attention of all soldiers, sailers, mariners and nurses who served in the World war is called to the meeting of Kewanee Post No. 31, American Legion, to be held at the post on Tremont Street next Monday evening. The future of the post is said to be at stake and decisions at this meeting will mean much for the welfare of the post. Following the business meeting, there will be entertainment after which “the chow line will form on the left,” and there will be plenty of eats. “Doughboys,” ”gobs,” “leathernecks,” and others who served are urgently requested to make their arrangements now to attend this important meeting.

• A gang of “Barnyard Golf” fans from Kewanee went down to Bradford last Saturday and dropped the honors of the grand old game of hoss shoes to the Stark County flingers, 315 to 203.

This article originally appeared on Star Courier: Kewanee History from the Star Courier Archives, compiled by Dave Clarke