1 Front Volume 140 No. 8
Friday, April 19, 2013
The Tonica News
Single Copy Cost 50¢
Sweeping rocks in Tonica By Barb Kromphardt bkromphardt@tonicanews.com
TONICA – The residents of Tonica’s Bailey Creek Estates subdivision will soon get part of their headaches resolved. In April, residents attended the village board meeting to complain about the road in the subdivision. The road was tarred and chipped last fall, but cool weather
kept the rocks from sinking into the road. Instead, the rocks have formed mounds in the gutters and been scattered into the yards. At the village board meeting April 15, the board approved having someone come in and sweep the excessive stone out of the streets and gutters. However, if residents want the rocks out of
their yards, they’ll have to rake them to the curb themselves. Trustee Rick Higgins said the village will have to be careful about setting a precedent, as he had already had neighbors talk to him about the rocks in their yards. “I’ve been raking rocks out of my yard for 45 years,” he said. Village Engineer Jack Kusek had quotes from
two contractors, both of whom would charge about $500 to do the work. The board directed Kusek to hire the company that could do the work soonest. Kusek also had information about the $2.5 million new sewer plant the village will need to construct. The proposed plant will be an oxidation ditch, in which the sewage comes
in and moves around an oval ditch. There are mixing devices to add oxygen to the sewage, and then quiet ponds to allow activated sludge to digest the solids in the sewage. Kusek said the systems differ in how the sewage is moved through, the type of mixing devices, and the kind of maintenance that will be required. All of those differenc-
es have made the bidding process a challenge. Kusek said he is working with four different manufacturers, and because each system is different, he can’t create one plan for them all to bid on. Instead, Kusek has asked the four companies to prepare a proposal for the work they would suggest for the village.
See Road Page 2
Marion Naas brings back a simpler time By Dixie Schroeder news@tonicanews.com
LOSTANT – Everyone who knows Marion Naas of Lostant also knows he keeps busy. Naas, the owner of Marion’s Barber Shop for more than 50 years, keeps busy in his business, but it’s his passion for restoring and building vehicles that maybe keeps him even busier. Naas restores and builds cars. His first car was a 1930s Chevy. “I restored a ‘30s Chevy in the ‘70s,” he said. “Then I sold it. It is in Pennsylvania now. That was the first car I did.” Naas then moved on to a 1927 Model T. The car was given to him by a customer in 1988 who knew Naas would take care of it. Naas did a lot of work to get it fixed up. “I took the wheels all apart and the spokes out one at a time, and I redid those,” he said. “I then did other work. The engine and transmission is now totally rebuilt.” Each wheel of the Model T was made with wood spokes. The spokes were painted black. Naas said that he worked on each spoke individually to restore the look of the original wood. “I refinished them,” he said. “There were 48 spokes. I took them apart and did them one at a time and put them back in the same place, so there was no problem.” Naas has displayed the 1927 Model T at the Tonica car show most recently but tries not to drive it too often. “I just like to enjoy it myself,” he said. Another project Naas tackled in the 1990s was building a John Deere tractor. The tractor is a half-scale John Deere “D,” and it is built on steel wheels. “I made them from old parts gathered from other machinery,” he said. “It has an engine that has been redone. The transmission is out of an International self-propelled combine. The steel wheels are from old junk machinery.” The next project Naas tackled was a three-quarter scale 1901 Oldsmobile. “When I got out of high school in 1960, there was plans you could order for $3 in a Popular Mechanics magazine,” he said. “I never had the nerve enough to do it, until about five years ago.” It took him most of the winter to put the 1901 Oldsmobile together. The engine and transmission are from a lawn mower. “I used motorcycle wheels,” he said. “I had the springs made in North Dakota. The rest of it was woodwork.”
See Naas Page 3
Tonica News photo/Barb Kromphardt
Students in Trudy Forkner’s kindergarten class at Tonica Grade School pay close attention during a reading class. At present, Illinois requires districts to offer kindergarten but does not require that children attend kindergarten before being permitted to enroll in first grade.
Making the first impression Kindergarten Day is April 21 By Ken Schroeder news@tonicanews.com
TONICA – They teach students how to read and write. They help children through the first interactions with strangers, while often being strangers themselves. They tie shoes, zip up jackets, and wipe runny noses. They’re kindergarten teachers, probably one of the most important people outside of family for teaching life-long lessons. Kindergarten Day is April 21, and
Inside
Vol. 140 No. 8 One Section - 8 Pages
© The Tonica News
celebrates the birthday of Friedrich Froebe who was born in 1782 and started the first kindergarten in 1837 in Germany. Despite being popular in Germany, the Prussian government outlawed the schools in 1851. Froebe died a year later, and it wasn’t until 1860 the Prussians relented and allowed the schools to continue. In 1873, the first public kindergarten opened in the United States, in St. Louis. Trudy Forkner has been the kindergarten teacher at Tonica Grade
50 years
First Person
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School for 27 years, and she spent six years before that teaching junior high at Holy Family in Oglesby. She was very happy when she switched from junior high students to kindergarten. “Kindergarten children are easy to love. They want to be here. They truly love school. They truly love learning, and they believe me when I tell them something, where when you get into junior high, they’re a little more skeptical,” she said. It was during Forkner’s days teaching junior high at Holy Family when
See Kindergarten Page 2