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BOYS BASKETBALL • SPORTS, B1
Barbs start out 2-0 at Chuck Dayton tourney
Serving DeKalb County since 1879
Monday, December 23, 2013
GENOA MAIN STREET • LOCAL, A4
DeKalb’s Micah Fagerstrom
Volunteers assemble ice skating rink
DASHING DECORATIONS
Shaw Media to purchase Joliet paper SHAW MEDIA
Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Ken Copenhaver tends to the Christmas ferris wheel decoration in his Sycamore front yard. Copenhaver and his next-door neighbor are known for their grand display of Christmas lights on Gerry Lane. Go to Daily-Chronicle.com to check out video of the lights.
Holiday lights just as much fun for those who display them By DEBBIE BEHRENDS
“We’ve lived here for about 17 years, and the first year, we got Christmas cards from the neighbors telling us how much the kids like the lights.”
dbehrends@shawmedia.com
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YCAMORE – They say they do it for the kids, but it’s a pretty safe bet the families who go wild with holiday decorations are just kids at heart themselves. ••• Although a lot of homes are lit with twinkling lights and holiday decorations, some people spend weeks getting everything just right. At least one local family has been decorating for almost 40 years, occasionally with the help of family and friends. Smoky and Lin Nevitt, at 219 Alfred Drive, have decorated their Sycamore home with thousands of lights for 38 years. He figures he put out about 15,000 lights this year. “When I was working, I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off,” Smoky Nevitt said. “Now I start the first week of December. I work until
Andy Krafft, Sycamore resident
I get tired and quit for the day.” Nevitt said he has constructed many of the displays, including the sleigh and horses, a 10-foot star, trees and candles. Last year, friends gave them two lighted angels for the yard. Nevitt said a lot of the lights didn’t work, so he had to take them apart and reconstruct them before they could be displayed. Only once have the Nevitts suffered any vandalism. “One year someone stole our Mary and baby from the creche,” he said. “I drove around looking for them but never found them.” They were replaced just a day later by friends who passed on their Nativity display to the Nevitts. A little farther outside Sycamore, on Gerry Lane off Plank Road, visitors are greeted by the lights of two
neighbors who have competed – in a friendly way – for the most decorations. “He finally gave up,” joked Ken Copenhaver of his neighbor Andy Krafft. “I like to mess with [Copenhaver],” Krafft said. Copenhaver said he started decorating in 1996, adding a little more every year. He said it takes him about six weeks to finish his display. “The toughest part is running all the cords to be sure I don’t overload any of the [electrical] circuits in the house,” Copenhaver said. The Nevitts had help rewiring a portion of their home from electrician Bud Dresser specifically for the Christmas display. Both homeowners said they see a small spike in their electric bill, but
don’t mind the additional cost. “We plan and save for this all year,” Lin Nevitt said. One year, she said, their finances were so strapped they considered not displaying lights. “Our kids got together and told us we had to put the lights out and they would do without Christmas presents,” Lin Nevitt said. They all say they put up their displays for children to enjoy. “We’ve lived here for about 17 years, and the first year, we got Christmas cards from the neighbors telling us how much the kids like the lights,” Krafft said. “We have people pull in our driveway just to sit under the lights,” Nevitt said. Their driveway is covered, from the street to the garage, with an archway covered in multi-colored lights. Sometimes folks bring cameras, too. “We have people stop to get pictures of their kids with the Santa in the chair,” Copenhaver said, referring to a life-sized Santa on his lawn. “He moves and talks.”
Monica Maschak – mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Two neighboring homes on Gerry Lane in Sycamore boast a grand display of Christmas lights for passersby to enjoy.
DIXON – Shaw Media announced today that it has agreed to acquire the assets of The Herald-News in Joliet from Sun-Times Media. The purchase is expected to close during the first week of January. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Herald-News has been serving Joliet, Will County and Grundy County communities for more than 150 years and will continue as part of Shaw Media’s newspaper group. “We are excited to bring The Herald-News into our established, and growing, family-owned media portfolio,” Shaw Media President John Rung said. “We expect to maintain the storied tradition of serving the Joliet region with a high-quality, community-oriented newspaper.” “We have found a great buyer for The Herald-News in Shaw Media,” said Tim Knight, president of SunTimes Media. “This sale will allow the Sun-Times to focus its resources on transforming its core products.” Shaw Media, based in Dixon, is the third oldest continuously owned and operated family media company in the nation. It is the parent company of the Daily Chronicle. The purchase of The Herald-News adds to Shaw Media’s growing portfolio of publications in the Chicago suburbs. It follows the 2012 purchase of Downers Grove-based Suburban Life Media, which added 22 weekly publications in Cook, DuPage, Kane and Will counties to the company’s award-winning publications in Crystal Lake, DeKalb, Dixon, Grayslake, Morris, Princeton, St. Charles and Sterling in Illinois, and in Newton and Creston in Iowa.
Police see few problems after weekend snow By ANDREA AZZO aazzo@shawmedia.com DeKALB – The approximate twoinch snowfall in DeKalb on Saturday into Sunday caused little problems for police. The storm, which saw about six inches of snowfall in Rockford, caused one accident and nine cars to fall into ditches, said Gary Dumdie, chief deputy of DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office. “I think it started late enough [Saturday] that everybody was pretty much in by the time the roads started getting bad,” Dumdie said. Friday was a bigger issue for deputies, when there were 12 accidents and 48 reports of cars in ditches, Dumdie said. The snowfall today likely will not cause many problems, Northern Illinois University Meteorologist Gilbert Sebenste said. The area is expected to get less than an inch of snow today with windchills below zero, Sebenste said. This means drivers have to worry more about icy roads, but it shouldn’t be a big problem, Sebenste said. “Most areas will have the roads plowed by morning,” he said. “Sidewalks will still be very icy. That will have to be watched for. “Areas not salted will likely still be very icy.” The National Weather Service will not have official totals for the weekend’s snowfall until 7 a.m. today.
VOICE YOUR OPINION: Did you string holiday lights outside your home this year? Vote online at Daily-Chronicle.com. See SNOW, page A4
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