I love busy weekends in Quincy, and this one is no exception.
Saturday features a bunch of history displays, including walking tours of Woodland Cemetery and tours of the Washington Theater on Hampshire.
Sunday features the Can Jam at Turner Hall, featuring Fielder, The Blue Healers, Ben Bumbry & The Messengers, Antidote and The Classics.
Get out there and enjoy a great weekend!
A short and poignant police memorial service took place this morning at City Hall.
Quincy Police Chief Rob Copley decided to observe the national day of recognizing slain law enforcement officers by gathering QPD, Adams County Sheriff's Department and Illinois State Police officers in the parking lot by the Sept. 11 memorial.
Detectives Bryan Dusch, Adam Yates and A.J. Stovall carried flags and raised them to half-mast. Jeff Schuecking then played taps from the back of the parking lot behind the assembled officers and QPD staff, his trumpet filling the chilly early morning air with the sad tune.
Four QPD officers have died in the line of duty — William Dallas (1876), Thomas Seehorn (1878), Osmer Milbert (1957) and Frank Howell (1964). They are honored with a memorial on the east side of City Hall by the QPD parking garage entrance.
We remember them today, along with all officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Clarence Starks received eight years in jail
for stealing a truck in Oct. 2007.
It was one of the more unusual chases in Quincy, but it didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time.
It was Oct. 8, 2007. Clarence Starks, a homeless Quincy man, stole a truck near Fifth and Hampshire and bolted north. Quincy Police Department canine officer Adam Gibson responded, stopped the truck near Einhaus Lane and Bonansinga Drive, but the vehicle fled south.
The vehicle went through the intersection of Broadway and Bonansinga Drive, plowed through a hedge and a metal railing in Clat Adams Park, and came to rest several hundred feet south of the intersection on the railroad tracks.
I heard the chase on the scanner, then headed to the park when Gibson reported the crash. They were just putting Starks in the back of a squad car when I got there.
He had what appeared to be mud on this pants and shoes, but I wasn’t that close and didn’t figure it was that big of a deal. The truck was removed from the tracks, and Starks eventually received eight years in prison after pleading guilty to stealing the truck.
Three weeks later, John Kelley’s body was found in an abandoned North Sixth Street residence. Kelley, like Starks, was homeless. Kelley had been dead for about three weeks when his body was found.
Authorities officially declined to comment when I asked if there was a connection between Starks and Kelley. But sometimes silence speaks volumes. They were waiting on lab results, which often takes months.
Starks was indicted this month for Kelley’s murder. Turns out Starks killed a young Quincy child more than 20 years ago, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, served about half the sentence and was back in Quincy last year.
Starks is innocent until proven guilty and, for now, only God knows for sure what happened in that abandoned house the day Kelley was killed.
We will all know more soon, though.
John Frank is an ordained Baptist pastor. He doesn’t preside over a church, instead working at the Illinois Veterans Home in the dietary department and attending The Crossing.
Saturday on Quinsippi Island, Frank presided over the log cabin wedding of Diane Jordan and Randy Stump. It was the first wedding inside the church in 27 years.
“Actually, I did a wedding here about four years ago,” Frank said with a grin Saturday, as the happy bride and groom greeted friends and family after the ceremony. “We had to do it outside of the church because the door was locked.”
Diane and Randy need to be commended for doing something different but real. Randy lives in Liberty and Diane in Quincy, and Diane firmly said the couple wasn’t going to live with each other until they got married.
Frank should be recognized for realizing two people in love wanted a Christian wedding. He made sure to read the famous I Corinthians 13 scripture about love, and made sure everybody knew God was present inside the rustic setting.
Maybe other pastors wouldn’t do it. Maybe other people frown on things like the Quinsippi Island wedding because it didn’t have a fancy ceremony in a big church. There was no organ or flute music for Randy and Diane. No lighting of candles, reciting laborious vows or hosting an expensive reception, either.
Just two people in love, doing the right thing.
“It’s just like when Jesus went to Canaan for the wedding,” Frank said. “Jesus is for everyone.
“We have to break outside the doors of the church,” he continued. “People of the church need to make themselves available.”
That, friends, deserves a rousing “Amen.”
They should have canceled classes at John Wood Community College Monday and made every student attend Sarah Panzau’s presentation about drinking and driving.
Surprisingly few JWCC students attended the event, sponsored by Anheuser Busch. Panzau, 26, detailed the gruesome and life-changing effects of drinking and driving in her life.
I know, I know. It’s near the end of the semester, people are busy, it’s hard to rearrange schedules, etc. And forcing a student to attend something like this is unfair, a waste of time, blah blah blah.
I counted about 50 or 60 college students. The rest were from several area high schools, and the kids listened respectfully to Sarah’s riveting story. She stood in a tank top and shorts, not afraid to show the scars from 36 surgeries and the nub of her left arm, torn off after an August 2003 car crash caused by her intoxicated driving.
Earlier in the day, Quincy Notre Dame students — all required to attend during a school assembly — gave Sarah a standing ovation after her talk.
A local educator recently told me the key to informing kids about the dangers of alcohol and substance abuse is to get them at an early age.
“By the time they are in high school, if they haven’t learned, it’s too late,” the person said.
There’s a lot of truth to that statement. But if we just stop and give up now, we’re not doing the right thing.
Our job is to present information, then hope and pray our young people do the right thing.
I know Jim Rinella of Rinella Distributing and Mike Elbe of JWCC tirelessly promoted the event and made sure everybody knew about it.
Sarah’s story was beyond awesome, especially the way she interacted with students.
Most of them at John Wood missed out, and that’s a shame.
A coffin shaped like a PBR can, eh?
What do you want to be buried in?
Did you hear the story about a Chicago man who bought a casket shaped like a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can? He recently used the coffin as a cooler at a party.
To quote Monty Python in "Search For The Holy Grail," he's "not dead yet." Also, Pabst can be used to kill weeds, bugs and other wildlife, so you gotta admire a guy who gets a lot of use from the product.
This, of course, leads to the inevitable question ... what do you want to be buried in?
When I go, spread my ashes over Lake Michigan and put a few in the 18th hole cup at Westview. It would be the first time I ever sank anything in there, anyway.
A photo of Dale Waack's house at 517 Monroe
that was taken in the late 1800s.
I got a great email Wednesday from Dale Waack of Cedar Falls, Iowa. Dale grew up in Calftown and enjoyed the recent column about living west of 12th Street.
Here is his e-mail, complete with a historic photo of the house.
Dear Rodney,
Welcome to my old neighborhood! Memories! Memories! My mother, who now lives in a duplex at Good Samaritan Home, sent me a copy of your column about Calftown. When I was 4 or 5 years old we moved across the alley from my grandparents' duplex at 504 Madison to 517 Monroe. I would eventually leave Quincy for job reasons after graduation (QHS-1965, QU-1970).
My dad passed away in 1990 and my mom remained in the house until 2002. She had lived all her life on either Madison or Monroe between Fifth and Sixth Streets. She and my aunt have the great distinction of being accidentally locked in the old city vault at the back end of Woodland Cemetery when they were kids. Each place you mentioned in your article were part of my childhood and I could tell you story after story about each place. For those of us in the area, the cemetery being a fourth of a block away from my house was simply our playground. With all the great hills, it was the home to motorless go-karts made from a few boards and wheels, to sledding at night in the dark (NO FEAR!), to building forts from what ever we could find at the bottom of the dump. Sometimes we would get run out by the caretakers of the cemetery, only to return a few hours later. My wife always says she knew she was going to be accepted into the family before we were married when my folks asked her if she wanted to take a walk in the cemetery. Figure that one out.
Ralph Korte operated the monument shop across 5th street from the entrance to the cemetery. He made a tombstone for our dog when she died at the request of my tearful little sister with a handfull of pennies. She now has it in her yard near St. Louis. Shooting baskets on a hoop attached to the garage across the alley at night with the aid of the alley pole light was the norm.
I was around for the two previous swimming pools at Indian Mounds. The best was still the old circular pool with the diving tower in the middle. South Park and the creek were like a magnet. We would walk the creek to the river just to see if we could find anything that we hadn't seen before. Riding a bike at 10 at night from 8 or 10 blocks away was no big deal. It was a different time during my years as a kid growing up in Calftown - and I wouldn't change a thing! To the best of my knowledge, none of the kids I ran with in the neighborhood have served time for a felony, so I guess Calftown served us well.
I have attached a scan of a photo of my old home (517 Monroe) which was found by my dad in the attic after we moved in when I was 4 or 5 years old. It shows the original owner family by the name of Peckemeyer (not sure of the spelling). We think it was taken sometime in the 1880s, but not real sure. This was when it was really Calftown! The young boy standing away from the others never married and it was from him or his estate that my parents bought the house.
As Bob Hope used to say - "Thanks for the memories."
Dale Waack
Cedar Falls, Iowa
Today's incident at Quincy University, where a man suspected of cooking meth ran from 17th and Oak to Francis Hall, shows how technology can keep people updated.
Ashley Hackamack, a senior communications major, was one of many students ushered into a locked classroom after the suspect ran into the building. Ashley said she didn't feel threatened, but it was a little tense as officers searched the building.
So Ashley got on her laptop computer, as QU has a wireless campus. She received e-mails from QU security updating students, faculty and staff about the situation. She also called up the name of the suspect on the Adams County Circuit Clerk Web site.
Information is always good, even when you are locked in a classroom!
All of baseball and country music is abuzz over the story that legendary flamethrower Roger Clemens might have had "a relationship" with country music singer Mindy McCready.
Well. Clemens was a teammate of Wade Boggs, after all. McCready apparently had a 1996 hit called "Guys Do It All The Time." Let's just leave that one alone, shall we?
So here are 10 songs we suggest McCready do as she begins her comeback — she just got out of jail last December for violating a drug conviction probation.
1. All My Ex's Live in Texas
2. Rocket Man
3. Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Yankees
4. Stand By Your Pitcher
5. Hit Me Baby One More Time
6. Crazy
7. Whiskey For My Man, Beer For His Teammates
8. I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy
9. Take Me Out To The Ballgame
10. Boys of Summer
If you have any other suggestions .... keep 'em somewhat clean but let me know!
Today's story about the Marion County Sheriff's Department starting a Felony Fugitive Warrant Squad got me thinking about places to hide.
Let's say there's a warrant out for a guy. Where does he go? Does he bolt town, change his haircut and shave his beard, change his name, start activing differently?
Marion County isn't that big of a place. I would think after a while, people would run out of places to hide ... unless they had help.
This makes me think of Jose Olmeda, the convicted drug trafficker who also pleaded guilty to breaking out of the Adams County Jail in Quincy last December. He was on the lam in Quincy for 10 days before a Seventh and Oak resident called police and gave him up.
You know Olmeda had help from people while on the loose. Just how he survived in freezing weather and with law enforcement officers looking for him is something of a marvel and mystery.
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