Downers Grove 12-18-19

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Downers Grove Village wins ‘Plugged-In Public Safety Award’

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Elite start Benet girls off to fast start to the season see page 5

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Puzzles & More Take 5 Mnutes for Yourself see page 6

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Wednesday, December 18, 2019 | buglenewspapers.com

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victorian christmas brings community together

merry and bright: a victorian christmas annual event takes place at the downers grove museum by ryan ostry bugle staff

@RyanOstry_BR18 rostry@buglenewspapers.com A Downers Grove annual event, “Merry and Bright: A Victorian Christmas” again came to the Downers Grove Museum campus this holiday season.

In what was a free family event that included historic sights and sounds of Victorian Christmas traditions, between 300 and 400 visitors showed up to celebrate the annual event.

From 1835 until the 1930’s, the Blodgett family owned the Downers Grove land, which is now a museum.

This year, in the 1892 Victorian house, Santa stopped by for a visit, where there were also games, crafts, a card-writing station where the cards written are given to children in hospitals and a scavenger hunt for fun and other types of Christmas clues.

One thing that changed this year,

was the tree decorating contest, where the trees are judged online by Downers Grove Museum Facebook followers and are on display during “Merry and Bright”.

“It’s a local event where we have had a lot of success before,” said Recreation Supervisor of Historical Programming Felicia Camacho. “It’s free and open to the public, a good way to see Santa and with all of the games and crafts that is always enjoyed by families with kids.”

On top of the new tree decorating contest, the museum opened up the 1846 house to the public for the first time, which Camacho said gained a lot of interest for those who have never been to the event.

Because the event had different activities at surrounding houses and for those who wanted to see all of the new games and history, those in attendance had to walk outside to get from place to place.

For those who traveled frequently,

they could warm up near a campfire while they roasted marshmallows.

Other holiday snacks and beverages were also available for purchase from Wells Street Popcorn and the Questers Cookie Sale inside the Victorian Blodgett House.

Throughout the museum campus, the Canterbury Carollers, where they dressed up in an authentic period costume that was the ensemble back in the Victorian era, played Victorian-era carols.

Towards the end of the night, the Downers Grove North High School choir performed throughout the campus, exciting the crowd with more music.

“Something I noticed is that even though we usually host the event the second Saturday in December every year, people really like to learn about the history of the Victorian era so they enjoy doing the luminary walk where they can understand a little bit more about the holiday traditions back in that era,” Camacho said. “I always enjoy people coming here and learning things they didn’t previously know before visiting.”

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news brieFs >> downers grove

Village wins ‘PluggedIn Public Safety Award’ Joe koenig of chicago area clean cities discusses progress in downers grove by ryan ostry bugle staff

@RyanOstry_BR18 rostry@buglenewspapers.com The Chicago Area Clean Cities Coalition (CACC) recently announced its 2019 Leadership Award winners at its annual December meeting and reception.

One of the awards just happened to go to the city of Downers Grove.

“We selected the village for its wide array of environmentally friendly technologies that it is using to reduce emissions,” said Joe Koenig of Chicago Area Clean Cities. “This year, the village began using its first plug-in electric hybrid vehicles.”

Being selected as one of the “Top 50 Greenest Fleets in North America” has its perks, but the village of Downers Grove has taken this honor back to its own city for the now seventh consecutive year.

The CACC, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, is a nonprofit focused on promoting clean transportation in the six-county Chicago areas, including DuPage.

Awards that are given annually are to certain organizations and individuals that take actions to locally reduce petroleum consumption and improve air quality, such as by using cleaner-burning alternative-fuel vehicles, electric vehicles or other advanced technologies.

Other awards given out this year were: “Best Performing Municipality” to the village of Oak Park, “Leadership in Public Service” to Tom Thompson with the Forest Preserves of Cook County, “Community Leadership Award” to Neda Deylami, “Above and Beyond Award” to Ozinga and “Service Station of the Year” to the greater Chicago I-55 Truck Plaza.

The CACC is one of almost

more inFo being selected as one of the top 50 greenest Fleets in north america has its perks, but the village of downers grove has taken this honor back to its own city for the now seventh consecutive year.

100 coalitions across the country that is affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program that brings together stakeholders to increase the use of alternative fuel and advanced-vehicle technologies, reduce idling and to help improve fuel economy and air quality.

For Downers Grove, where there is an estimated 49,387 people, the vehicles used by the Police Department’s Community Support Officers are averaging more than 75 miles-pergallon, replacing Ford Crown Victoria models that only averaged 14 miles-per-gallon.

The city is currently running around 83 percent of the village’s fleet on some form of alternative fuel.

These alternatives included biodiesel (B20), E-85 (ethanol), compressed natural gas (CNG), propane, solar power and hybrid combinations.

The carrying through of green initiatives like the use of cleaner has more efficient alternative fuels achieves the village’s strategic plan goal of being “a steward of financial and environmental sustainability.”

Using alternative fuels reduces the environmental impact of fleet operations and is more cost-effective than traditional petroleum-based products according to Koenig.

“Stan Balicki and the team with the village also regularly attend our Clean Cities meetings to learn about the latest in clean-vehicle technologies and to benchmark other municipalities,” Koenig said. “ Stan, who is with the Village’s Public Works Department, has been activity involved in our coalition for the past 20 years.”

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BASKETBALL SOCCER CROSS COUNTRY FOOTBALL SOCCER TENNIS BASEBALL SOFTBALL VOLLEYBALL TRACK & FIELD SWIMMING CHEERLEADING DANCE bowling basketball

elite

status

benet has the talent and depth to be an elite team and is showing it early against good teams by drake skleba For the bugle

@BugleNewspapers sweditor@buglenewspapers.com Back on December 27. 2018 in the 10th annual Montini Christmas Classic, the girls from Benet Academy and Fremd played a quarterfinal game that bore a resemblance, to the Chicago Bear-Green Bay Packer NFL rivalry.

To say the officials let the girls play would be an understatement.

After 32 minutes the Redwings and Vikings, both bloodied and bruised, went 12 more minutes, before the Vikings prevailed 59-54 in triple overtime. The Redwings bounced back from to win the next two days and take home the tournament’s fifthplace trophy.

On Saturday night in Lisle, in the rematch the two clubs played 31 minutes and 56 and a half seconds to a 4444 deadlock.

With 3.5 seconds left in regulation, Redwing junior Molly Sheehan’s (nine points, three 3’s) game-winning three-point shot rimmed out and the two clubs went to overtime.

Fremd’s 6-foot senior forward Oliva Hill (11 points, six rebounds) put the Vikings up 48-44 with 3:26 remaining in the first overtime with a basket and two free throws.

Illinois’ top-ranked Redwings (110) closed out the last 3:26 of overtime with a 15-2 run and rolled past the 7-2 Vikings 59-50.

Benet’s, DePaul-bound Kendall Holmes scored nine of her game-high 21 points in the last 3:26 of overtime.

Her old-fashioned three-point play and steal and score with 2:32 in OT gave the Redwings a 49-48 lead they would not relinquish.

“We really wanted to beat Fremd

see elite page 6 kendall moriarty is one of the many pieces of benet s talented, deep 2019 team.

photo by mark gregory

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6 elite From page 5 after last year’s heart-breaking loss,” Holmes said. “Heading into the overtime we all felt we were going to win.

Fremd is a great team, they are wellcoached and they play very hard.

“Everybody contributed to this win tonight. Our ultimate goal is to get

wednesday, december 18, 2019 | buglenewspapers.com back to state but we are taking it one game at a time. We are improving every game. We are all sisters. We hang out together off the court.”

Redwing guards, senior Ashley Berry (five points, five steals) and junior Nebraska-recruit Kendall Moriarty ( nine points, five steals), were outstanding at picking the pockets of

Fremd ball-handlers.

“Ashley Berry is a complete warrior,” Benet Academy coach Joe Kilbride said. “Fremd’s Emily Klaczek (17 points) is a tremendous guard and Ashley dogged her all-night long. I am so proud of her.”

“After losing to Fremd in triple overtime last year, we really wanted

to have the game go our way tonight,” Moriarty said. “I really pride myself on my defense and with my defense I can contribute even when my shots aren’t falling. It’s such a positive for us to have such a deep bench. They were outstanding, tonight.”

The Redwings led 24-20 at the half.

Led by Sheehan, the Redwings’

second unit, Allison Forney (three points), Lindsey Rogers (five points) and Lexi Moriarty (two points) outscored the starting five 13-11 in the first half.

At the end of the third quarter, Sheehan on a perfect pass from Holmes, buried her third three-pointer of the game to give the Redwings a 36-33 lead after three quarters.

The Redwings missed their last eight three-point attempts of the game.

“When our schedule came out and we saw Fremd on it, we were really motivated to avenge our triple overtime loss to them last season,”Sheehan said. “It really hurt last year and we all were not going to let it happen again.

Trailing in the overtime, we all rallied behind Kendall Holmes, to pick up this great win.”

Wisconsin-bound Brooke Schramek had three big blocked shots along with five rebounds and scored six points. Redwing sophomore center Morgan Demos chipped in with four points and four boards.

“I told the girls that this game would be a grinder,” Killbride added.

“I told the girls to continue to play hard and they did, to get the grind of a win. We wore them down with our pressure defense. We are improving every game. I really loaded up the first half of our schedule with great teams.”

A game earlier, Benet handed the first loss of the season to Marist, who came into the game undefeated.

The Redwings went on the road and left a 63-55 winner.

Holmes led the team with 22 points and seven rebounds, while Schramek posted 17 points and four assists and Kendall Moriarty added 11 points.

“These have been good wins,” Kilbride said. “These are not chippies, these are quality wins.”

Other than the Division-I talent, Benet’s success comes from the depth and skill level of the bench.

“It is depth that really fits together,” Kilbride said. “Last year we were deep, but it was harder to put it together becuase of the skill sets. This year, it really fits well.

“What is really plesant for us is that they have bought in. The kids coming off the bench really understand their role, kids aren’t trying to do too mych.

They are doing what we need them to do. We have seniors like Lexi Moriarty, Lindsey Rogers and Al Forney coming off the bench and they have bought in.”

For players like Holmes and Schramek, it is refreshing to have talented players behind them.

“We have an advantage with our bench that we can go five in, five out if we are tired,” Schramek said. “I think most high school teams in our area only have five or six players and we have 10 that can all really play.”

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