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Irene Clay racing against time Fairdale survivor, 87, hospitalized days before new home to arrive By ADAM POULISSE apoulisse@shawmedia.com FAIRDALE – Only days before she’s expected to have a new house to replace the one destroyed by the April 9 tornado, Fairdale resident Irene Clay’s battle with lung cancer has taken a drastic turn for the worse.
It started after dinner Monday in their temporary home with relatives in Kirkland, her son Mike Clay said. “She was outside and she seemed pretty Irene Clay good,” he said. “But after she was in the
house, she ate, then it was alMore inside most like she zoned out.” Irene was unresponsive, he See Page A3 for a story about the said, just staring out the winnew tornado siren coming Fairdale dow at the children playing in next month. the yard. When she finally did start talking, “none of it made sense.” “We thought maybe she and got her [to the hospital] as had a minor stroke,” Mike soon as we could.” Clay said. “We got in the car Irene, who turned 87
Wednesday, has been at Kishwaukee Hospital since, going in and out of lucidity. Her daughter, Geri Hopper, said the cancer’s spread to her brain, causing it to swell. Irene had a seizure Tuesday, and the doctor put her on steroids. Doctors stopped chemotherapy. Irene’s and her family’s
new modular home is expected to arrive at the site of her former home near the intersection of Brown and West streets in Fairdale to put on an updated foundation. It will house Clay, Hopper, her husband and their Labrador retriever puppy, Isabelle.
See IRENE CLAY, page A2
Scientists: A new member of the human family tree
FOCUS ON AREA RETAIL SALES
Bones discovered in 2013 By LYNSEY CHUTEL The Associated Press
Photos by Mary Beth Nolan – mnolan@shawmedia.com
Christie Carter of Carter’s Cottage Interiors arranges merchandise Thursday in her shop at 209 E. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb.
Hometown purchasing power DeKalb Chamber of Commerce encourages shopping locally Voice your opinion
By KATIE SMITH ksmith@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Joyce Waters wants you to feel at home in her downtown DeKalb shop – so much so, she might even feed you doughnuts and give you coffee while you look around – a kind of customer service specific to a business that appreciates its community. The money, time and even some of the furniture at Waters’ store, My Favorite Things, is recycled right back into the DeKalb community. “People call me and I go,” she said. “A lot of people bring things in they want to sell. I get calls from all around.” My Favorite Things is only one of the local and independently-owned shops in DeKalb. Being a patron to some of these businesses might even save you money, as a result of the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce’s Shop Local initiative, said Matt Duffy, executive director of the chamber. “The dollars just cycle back within the community,” he said. “Anytime those dollars go out of the community, you lose an opportunity for something that could be in the community.” Through the Shop Local initia-
How often do you make an effort to shop at local businesses? Vote online at Daily-Chronicle.com.
Shop dog D.J greets customer Diana Whaley of Batavia on Thursday at Poppy Seed Primitives at 223 E. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb. He is a rescue owned by proprietor Sandy Spier. tive, members of the chamber can post coupons and discounts to be spent at their business for a given amount of time. The program is year round, but it’s near the holidays that the chamber amps up its promotion, Duffy said. “We’ve done the shop local on our website for about five-plus years,” he said. “We ramp it up at certain times – if we do it all the time, it becomes white noise.”
It’s the idea of spending money in a way that will benefit local people, that the chamber and local business-owners are trying to promote. But in the age of Amazon and eBay, it’s foolish to expect people to stop buying outside their community entirely, Duffy said. “Online is a huge part of today’s world. ... It’s a change in the way people think,” he said. “Years
and years ago, there wasn’t that thought process. There wasn’t online to compete with.” But some local entrepreneurs have been able to use the immediacy and pervasiveness of the Internet to their advantage. Allison Johnson, owner of Bliss Beads, uses online platforms like Etsy and a personal website to sell her handmade jewelery to more than just the local community, she said. By promoting herself both online and throughout DeKalb, she’s been able to establish some regular customers. “I try to keep in touch with my customers through email and sometimes through regular mail,” she said. “I like keeping in touch with my regulars, and I think they like to know where they can find me or where they can see me work.” Being an artist whose product is predominately made at home in DeKalb has its advantages, too.
MAGALIESBURG, South Africa – Jagged rocks hooked into Steven Tucker’s overalls as he squeezed through a crack deep in a subterranean cave. Upon emerging at the other end, he saw he was in a chamber dripping with stalactites. Then his headlamp shone onto a bone. Then more bones, and half of a skull. It was the night of Sept. 13, 2013, and Tucker and his caving partner had just discovered the remains of what scientists would later determine to be a new member of the human family tree. The announcement of the discovery was made by scientists on Thursday, with Tucker looking on. Tucker was only trying to get out of fellow caver Rick Hunter’s way, inching to the side, on a different intended route when he stepped into the crack in the network of caves known as Rising Star. He’d heard of the crack before, but despite having been down this cave more than 20 times before, he had never noticed it, nor known of any other caver who had ventured down it. He shone his headlamp down the dark crevice, and couldn’t see where it ended. He knew of at least one other caver who also stared down the crack, and decided it was too dangerous. He began to lower himself, feet-first, into the narrow vertical opening. “It’s exciting to find something new,” Tucker, now 27, told The Associated Press on Thursday, trying to explain why he took the risk. Tucker, just wiry enough to fit, followed the crack deeper into the earth for nearly 13 yards. “It’s 7.1 inches wide, with these jagged rocks, sticking into you from all sides. And suddenly at the bottom, it opens up into a large chamber with really stunning stalactites hanging from the ceiling,” Tucker said, hunching his shoulders and jutting his elbows out as he re-enacted the descent. The 123,550-acre area of hilly grasslands where the two were spelunking is recognized as the Cradle of Humankind, featuring a network of caves that has yielded nearly 40 percent of known hominid fossils, according to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. But the bones in this particular chamber had apparently remained undiscovered until Tucker entered it.
See DISCOVERY, page A4 This National Geographic image shows a reconstruction of Homo naledi’s face by paleoartist John Gurche at his studio in Trumansburg, N.Y. Mark Thiessen/National Geographic via AP
See SHOP LOCAL, page A6
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T’wolves win
Domestic battery
Following a calling
Indian Creek girls volleyball beats Hiawatha / B1
An Evergreen Park woman accused of arson is facing new charges / A4
Sycamore’s Michael Lerohl of will serve as a missionary in Croatia / B10
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