THURSDAY
Janua r y 7, 2016 • $1.00
DAILY CHRONICLE LAUGHINGSTOCK
Comedian Brian Regan to appear at DeKalb’s Egyptian Theatre / C1
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Incubator plans moving forward County’s development committee to design trial program to increase local businesses By RHONDA GILLESPIE
rgillespie@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Groundwork is being laid to create a business incubator as part of a threeyear trial plan to grow a new crop of small businesses in DeKalb County. DeKalb County’s Economic Development Committee is tasked with planning, designing and, eventually, evaluating the hub for entrepreneurs that will be housed some time
this year in the Community Outreach Building on North Annie Glidden Road. “It’s another stage of economic development plans to make sure we are fostering entrepreneurs in the county, and that we’re trying to promote new business growth,” said Mark Pietrowski Jr., chairman of the County Board and a member of the economic development committee. The seven-member committee got started this week with
a tour of the 16-office space where the incubator will be set up. County Administrator Gary Hanson led the tour, where committee members saw other features, including Mark pods of cubicles, Pietrowski Jr. banks of file cabinets and storage drawers and common areas. Part of the space was pre-
viously occupied by a home health care business that has since been sold to KishHealth, Pietrowski said. Although most of the site is empty, Adventure Works, a special therapy provider, is currently there. “Our thought is that we would reallocate that space, all for the incubator,” Pietrowski said. Incubators have proliferated around the country over the past two decades. They are
used primarily to give entrepreneurs affordable access to work space, mentoring and other tools designed to help them not only start a business, but have it thrive. They’re often in the space for multiple years. The hubs have mostly sprung up in the private sector, representing science research, technology and retail and other industries. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Op-
portunity lists 14 incubators. And while the state contributed funding to the EnterpriseWorks at the Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, publicly funded incubators are rare. DeKalb County establishing and running an incubator could set a precedent in the state. “It would be great. It would
See INCUBATOR, page A4
Tribe reacts to Oregon group
HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS GO BACK TO THEIR ROOTS
Leader: Protesters are ‘desecrating’ nature preserve By TERRENCE PETTY and MANUEL VALDES The Associated Press
Photos by Danielle Guerra – dguerra@shawmedia.com
Longtime Hinckley resident Jerry Bahl holds a 75th anniversary Harlem Globetrotters basketball, which was signed by the team during its 2001 visit, on Tuesday at the Hinckley Historical Society. Bell has a bench pass for tonight’s game.
Journey through time
Globetrotters celebrate 90th anniversary with return to Hinckley By BRITTANY KEEPERMAN
bkeeperman@shawmedia.com
HINCKLEY – The Harlem Globetrotters will stage what could be the game of the century today in the town where the iconic basketball entertainment team launched its first tour nine decades ago. The Harlem Globetrotters will play a sold-out game at Hinckley-Big Rock High School as part of a 90th anniversary tour at 7 p.m. today. A new town sign will be revealed at 1 p.m. The team played its first road game in 1927 at Hinckley High School, where it lost to the Hinckley Merchants, 43-34. Since the ‘20s, the Harlem Globetrotters have played in tournaments around the world and appeared on TV shows and been the subject of novelty products. The basketball team is known for
SPORTS
Hot start
Huskies pull away late to open conference play with win / B1
Joe Stover, an engineer at Quantum Sign Corp. in Sugar Grove, holds the new Hinckley town sign up on the posts while a crewmember screws the sign together Wednesday in front of Hinckley-Big Rock High School. The official unveiling of the sign, which the Harlem Globetrotters donated to the village, will be at 1 p.m. today before the team plays to a sold-out crowd at 7 p.m. in the Hinckley-Big Rock gym to celebrate the team’s 90-year history. its on-court entertaining. It’s more of a show than a basketball game, said Jerry Bahl, member of the Hinckley Historical Society.
“They put on a good show,” he said. Bahl has lived in Hinckley since 1941 and said he goes to see the
LOCAL NEWS
Re-evaluating
County sheriff’s office to look at pursuit policy after Pettengell case / A3
Harlem Globetrotters whenever they come through town. The Hinckley Historical Society museum hosts a collection of Globetrotter memorabilia, including old tickets, a jersey, photos and other items. A lunchbox featuring the team is probably the oldest artifact in the Globetrotter collection, Bahl said. The last time the team came through Hinckley was in 2001, as part of a 75th anniversary tour. The team also played in Hinckley in 1987. Bahl recalled when the team came through when he was in high school, about 1950. “I was so mad,” he said. “We wanted to play against them. We were all done with school except for spring baseball. Our coach wouldn’t let us play them because it would make us ineligible.” Although Bahl never got to test his skills against the Globetrotters, he will sit courtside with the players at today’s game. The village of Hinckley has a new sign touting its claim to fame,
SPORTS
NIU gymnastics After tough finish to ’15 season, Greenfield back at helm / B1
See GLOBETROTTERS, page A4
BURNS, Ore. – The leader of an American Indian tribe that regards an Oregon nature preserve as sacred issued a rebuke Wednesday to the armed men who are occupying the property, saying they are not welcome at the snowy bird sanctuary and must leave. The Burns Paiute tribe was the latest group to speak out against the men, who have taken several buildings at the preserve to protest policies governing the use of federal land in the West. “The protesters have no right to this land. It belongs to the native people who live here,” tribal leader Charlotte Rodrique said. She spoke at a news conference at the tribe’s cultural center, about a half-hour drive from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which is being occupied by about 20 men led by Ammon Bundy, whose father, Cliven, was at the center of a standoff in Nevada with federal officials in 2014 over use of public lands. Ammon Bundy is demanding that the refuge be handed over to locals. Rodrique said she “had to laugh” at the demand, because she knew Bundy was not talking about giving the land to the tribe. The 13,700-acre Burns Paiute Reservation is north of the remote town of Burns in Oregon sagebrush country. The reservation is separate from the wildlife refuge, but tribal members consider it part of their ancestral land. As with other tribes, the Burns Paiutes’ link to the land is marked by a history of conflict with white settlers and the U.S. government. In the late 1800s, they were forced off a sprawling reservation created
See PROTESTS, page A4
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